The Lost Hero: Re-Written
by DareSheDevil
Summary: The re-written version of The Lost Hero. What if Percy had a sister, one that he didn't know about? One that appeared at Camp Half-Blood the day after Percy disappeared? What if the prophecy was not the prophecy of 7, but of 8? This story is about how that would have played out...   Disclaimer: All rights go to Rick Riordan. On hiatus.
1. Chapter 1: Jason

Even before he got electrocuted, Jason was having a rotten day.

He woke up in the back seat of a school bus, holding hands with a girl he didn't know. That wasn't necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn't figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think.

A few dozen kids were sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking or sleeping. They all looked around his age... fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn't even know his own age.

The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out of the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn't live in the desert. He tried to think back... the last thing he remembered...

The girl squeezed his hand. 'Jason, you okay?'

He wore faded jeans, hiking boots and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate- brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn't work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change colour like a kaleidoscope - brown, blue and green.

Jason let go of her hand. 'Um, I don't -'

In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, 'All right cupcakes, listen up!'

The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he'd eaten something mouldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would have looked pretty scary if he hadn't been five feet zero. When he stood in the aisle, one of the students called, 'Stand up, Coach Hedge!'

'I heard that!' The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened.

A jolt went down Jason's spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn't belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was soon on the bus - and Jason wouldn't have a clue what to say.

But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. 'We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you little cupcakes cause any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way.'

He picked up a baseball bat and made like he was hitting a homer.

Jason looked at the girl next to him. 'Can he talk to us that way?'

She shrugged. 'Always does. This is the Wilderness School. "Where kids are the animals."'

She said it like it was a joke they had shared before.

'This is some kind of mistake,' Jason said. 'I'm not supposed to be here.'

The boy in front of him turned and laughed. 'Yeah, right, Jason. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW.'

The girl blushed. 'I didn't steal that car, Leo!'

'Oh, I forgot, Piper. What was your story? You "talked" the dealer into lending it to you?' He raised his eyebrows at Jason like, Can you believe her?

Leo looked like a Latino Santa's elf, with curly black hair, pointy ears, a cheerful, babyish face and a mischievous smile that to you right away that this guy should not be trusted around matches or sharp objects. His long, nimble fingers wouldn't stop moving - drumming in the seat, sweeping his hair behind his ears, fiddling with the buttons of his army fatigue jacket. Either that kid was naturally hyper, or he was hopped up on enough sugar and caffeine to give a heart attack to a water buffalo.

'Anyway,' Leo said, 'I hope you've got your worksheet, 'cause I used mine for spit wads days ago. Why are you looking at me like that? Has somebody drawn on my face again?'

'I don't know you,' Jason said.

Leo gave him a crocodile grin. 'Sure. I'm not your best friend. I'm his evil clone.'

'Leo Valdez!' Coach Hedge yelled from the front. 'Problem back there?'

Leo winked at Jason. 'Watch this.' He turned to the front. 'Sorry, Coach! I was having trouble hearing you. Could you use your megaphone, please?'

Coach Hedge grunted like he was pleased to have an excuse. He unclipped the megaphone from his belt and continued giving directions, but his voice came out like Darth Vader's. The kids cracked up. The coach tried again, but this time the megaphone blared: 'The cow says moo!'

The kids howled, and the coach slammed down the megaphone. 'Valdez!'

Piper stifled a laugh. 'Mu god, Leo. How did you do that?'

Leo slipped a tiny Phillips-head screwdriver from his sleeve. 'I'm a special boy.'

'Guys, seriously,' Jason pleaded. 'What am I doing here? Where are we going?'

Piper knitted her eyebrows. 'Jason, are you joking?'

'No! I have no idea -'

'Aw, yeah, he's joking,' Leo said. 'He's trying to get me back for that shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, aren't you?'

Jason stared at him blankly.

'No, I think he's serious.' Piper tried to take his hand again, but he pulled it away.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I don't - I can't -'

'That's it!' Coach Hedge yelled from the front. 'The back row has just volunteered to clean up after lunch!'

The rest of the kids cheered.

'There' a shocker,' Leo muttered.

But Piper kept her eyes on Jason, like she couldn't decide wether to be hurt or worried. 'Did you hit you head or something? You really don't know who we are?'

Jason shrugged helplessly. 'It's worse than that. I don't know who I am.'

The bus dropped them in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that's what it was: the National Museum of Nowhere, Jason thought. A cold wind blew across the desert. Jason hadn't paid much attention to what he was wearing, but it wasn't nearly warm enough: jeans and trainers, a purple T-shirt and a thin black windbreaker.

'So, a crash course for amnesiac.' Leo said, in a helpful tone that made Jason think that this was not going to be helpful. 'We go to the "Wilderness School"' - Leo made air quotes with his fingers. 'Which means we're "bad kids". Your family, or the court, or whoever, decided you were to much trouble, so they shipped you off to this lovely prison - sorry, "boarding school" - in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn valuable nature skills like running ten miles a day through the cacti and weaving daisies into hats! And for a special treat we go on "educational" field trips with Coach Hedge, who keeps order with a baseball bat. Is it all coming back to you now?'

'No.' Jason glanced apprehensively at the other kids: maybe twenty guys, half that many girls. None of them looked like hardened criminals, but he wondered what they'd all done to get sentenced to a school of delinquents, and he wondered why he belonged with them.

Leo rolled his eyes. 'You're really gonna play this out, huh? Okay, so the three of us started here together this semester. We're totally tight. You do everything I say and give me your dessert and do my chores -'

'Leo!' Piper snapped.

'Fine. Ignore that last part. But we are friends. Well, Piper's a little more than your friend, the last few weeks -'

'Leo, stop it!' Piper's face turned red. Jason could feel his own face burning, too. He thought he would remember going out with a girl like Piper.

'He's got amnesia or something,' Piper said. ' We've got to tell somebody.'

Leo scoffed. 'Who, Coach Hedge? He'd try to fix Jason by whacking him upside the head.'

The coach was at the front of the group, barking orders and blowing his whistle to keep the kids in line, but every so often he'd glance back at Jason and scowl.

'Leo, Jason needs help,' Piper insisted. 'He's got a concision or -'

'Yo, Piper.' One of the other guys dropped back to join them as the group was heading into the museum. The new guy wedged himself between Jason and Piper and knocked Leo down. 'Don't talk to these bottom-feeders. You're my partner, remember?'

The new guy had dark hair cut superman style, a deep tan and teeth so white they should've come with a warning label: DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY AT TEETH. PERMANENT BLINDNESS MAY OCCUR. He wore a Dallas Cowboys jersey, Western jeans and boots, and he smiled like he was God's gift to juvenile delinquent girls everywhere. Jason hated him instantly.

'Go away, Dylan,' Piper grumbled. 'I didn't ask to work with you.'

'Ah, that's no way to be. This is your lucky day!' Dylan hooked his arm through hers and dragged her through the museum entrance. Piper shot one more look over her shoulder like, 911.

Leo got up and brushed himself off. 'I hate that guy.' He offered Jason his arm, like they should go skipping inside together. '"I'm Dylan. I'm so cool, I want to date myself, but I can't figure out how! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!"'

'Leo," Jason said. 'You're weird.'

'Yeah, you tell me that a lot.' Leo grinned. 'But if you don't remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes. Come on!'

Jason figured if this was his best friend, his life must be pretty messed up, but he followed Leo into the museum.

They walked through the building, stopping here and there for Coach Hedge to lecture them with his megaphone, which alternately made him sound like a Sith Lord or blared out random comments like, 'The pig says oink.'

Leo kept pulling out nuts, bolts and pipe cleaners from that pockets of his army jacket and putting them together, like he had to keep his hands busy at all times. Jason was too distracted to pay much attention to the exhibits, but they were about the Grand Canyon and the Hualapai tribe, which owned the museum.

Some girls kept looking over at Piper and Dylan and snickering. Jason figured these girls were the popular clique. They wore matching jeans and pink tops and enough makeup for a Halloween party.

One of them said, 'Hey, Piper, does your tribe run this place? Do you get in free if you do a rain dance?'

The other girls laughed. Even Piper's so-called partner Dylan suppressed a smile. Piper's snowboarding jacket sleeves hid her hands, but Jason got the feeling she was clenching her fists.

'My dad's Cherokee,' she said. 'Not Hualapai. Course, you'd need a few brain cells to know the difference, Isabel.'

Isabel widened her eyes in mock surprise, so that she looked like an owl with a makeup addiction. 'Oh, sorry! Was your mom in this tribe? Oh, that's right. You never knew your mom.'

Piper charged her, but before a fight could start, Coach Hedge barked, 'Enough back there! Set a good example or O'll break out baseball bat!'

The group shuffled on to the next exhibit, but the girls kept calling out little comments to Piper.

'Good to be back on the rez?' one asked in a sweet voice.

'Dad's probably too drunk to work,' another said with fake sympathy. 'That's why she turned klepto.'

Piper ignored them, but Jason was ready to punch them himself. He might not remember Piper, or even who he was, but he knew he hated mean people.

Leo caught his arm. 'Be cool. Piper doesn't like us fighting her battles. Besides, if those girls found out the truth about her dad, they'd all be bowing down to her and screaming, "We're not worthy!"'

'Why? What about her dad?'

Leo laughed in disbelief. 'You're not kidding? You really don't remember that your girlfriends dad -'

'Look, I wish I did, but I don't even remember her, much less her dad.'

Leo whistled. 'Whatever. We have to talk when we get back to the dorm.'

They reached the far end of the exhibit hall, where some big glass doors led out to a terrace.

'All right, cupcakes,' Coach Hedge announced. 'You are about to see the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you featherweights should be safe out there. If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork.'

The coach opened the doors, and they all stepped outside. The Grand Canyon spread before them, live and in person. Extending over the edge was a horseshoe-shaped walkway made of glass, so you could see right through it.

'Man,' Leo said. 'That's pretty wicked.'

Jason had to agree. Despite his amnesia and his feeling that he didn't belong there, here. Couldn't help being impressed.

The canyon was bigger and wider than you could appreciate from a picture. They were so high up that birds circled below their feet. Five hundred feet down, a river snaked along the canyon floor. Banks of storm clouds had moved overhead while they'd been inside, casting shadows like angry faces across the cliffs. As far as Jason could see in any direction, red and grey ravines cut through the desert like some crazy god had taken a knife to it.

Jason got a piercing pain behind his eyes. Crazy gods... Where had he come up with that idea? He felt like he had got close to something important - something he should know about. He also got the unmistakeable feeling that he was in danger.

'You all right?' Leo asked. 'You're not going to throw up over the side, are you? 'Cause I should have brought my camera.'

Jason grabbed the railing. He was shivering and sweaty, but it had nothing to do with heights. He blinked, and the pain behind his eyes subsided.

'I'm fine,' He managed. 'Just a headache.'

Thunder rumbled overhead. A cold wind almost knocked him sideways.

'This can't be safe.' Leo squinted at the clouds. 'Storm's right over us, but it's clear all the way around. Weird, huh?'

Jason looked up and saw that Leo was right. A dark circle of clouds had parked itself over the skywalk, but the rest of the sky in every direction was perfectly free of clouds. Jason had a bad feeling about that.

'All right, cupcakes!' Coach Hedge yelled. He frowned at the storm like it bothered him as well. 'We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!'

The storm rumbled, and Jason's head started to hurt again. Not knowing why he did it, he reached into his jeans pocket and brought out a coin - a circle of gold the size of a half-dollar, but thicker and more uneven. Stamped on one side was a picture of a battle-axe. On the other side was some guy's face wreathed in laurels. The inscription said something like IVLIVS.

'Dang, is that gold?' Leo asked. 'You been holding out on me!'

Jason put the coin away, wondering how he'd come to have it, and why he had the feeling that he was going to need it soon.

'It's nothing,' He said. 'Just a coin.'

Leo shrugged. Maybe his mind had to keep moving as much as his hands. 'Come on,' he said. 'Dare you to spit over the edge.'

They didn't try very hard on the worksheet. For one thing, Jason was to distracted by his own mixed up feelings. For another thing, he didn't have any idea how to 'name three sedimentary strata you observe' or 'describe two examples of erosion'. One thing he did notice that there was a new girl with the school group. She had long, dark brown hair that went midway down her back, and eyes that seemed black from a distance, but when she walked past Jason, he saw that her eyes were actually dark brown, and her eyelashes were incredibly long. She seemed a little smaller than Leo. She was also wearing an unusual bronze necklace with four charms: a bow and quiver of arrows, a sword, a trident, and a dagger.

Leo was no help. He was too busy building a helicopter out of pipe cleaners.

'Check it out.' He launched the copter. Jason figured it would plummet, but the pipe cleaner blades actually spun. The little copter made it halfway across the canyon before it lost momentum and spiralled into the void. When Jason turned to look at Leo, he saw the mysterious girl looking at Leo, smiling. Jason shrugged it off.

'How'd you do that?' Jason asked Leo.

Leo shrugged. 'Would've been cooler if I had some rubber bands.'

'Seriously,' Jason said. 'Are we friends?'

'Last I checked.'

'You sure? What was the first day we met? What did we talk about?'

'It was...' Leo frowned. 'I don't recall exactly. I'm ADHD, man. You can't expect me to remember details.'

'But I don't remember you at all. I don't remember anyone here. What if -'

You're right and everyone else is wrong?' Leo asked. 'You think you just appeared here this morning, and we've all got fake memories of you?'

A little voice in Jason's head said, That's exactly what I think.

But it sounded crazy. Everybody here took him for granted. Everybody acted like he was a normal part of the class - except for Coach Hedge.

'Take the worksheet.' Jason handed Leo the paper. 'I'll be right back.'

Before Leo could protest, Jason headed across the skywalk.

Their school group had the place to themselves. Maybe it was too early in the day for tourists, or maybe the weird weather had scared them off. The Wilderness School kids had spread out in pairs. Most were joking around or talking. Some of the guys were dropping pennies over the side. About fifty feet away, Piper was trying to fill out her worksheet, but her stupid partner, Dylan, was hitting on her, putting his hand on her shoulder and giving her that blinding white smile. She kept pushing him away, and when she saw Jason she gave him a look like, Throttle this guy for me. Jason motioned for her to hang on. He also noticed something else. The same mysterious girl was watching Dylan with a look of concentration and disgust on her face, and Jason felt like she saw about to do something major.

He walked up to Coach Hedge, who was leaning on his baseball bat, studying the storm clouds.

'Did you do this?' the coach asked him.

Jason took a step back. 'Do what?' It sounded like the coach had just asked if he'd made the thunderstorm.

Coach Hedge glared at him, his beady little eyes glinting under the brim of his cap. 'Don't play games with me, kid. What are you doing here, and why are you messing up my job?'

'You mean... you don't know me?' Jason said. 'I'm not one of you students?'

Hedge snorted. 'Never seen you before today.'

Jason was so relieved he almost wanted to cry. At least he wasn't going insane. He was in the wrong place. 'Look, sir, I don't know how I got here. I just woke up on the school bus. All I know is that I'm not supposed to be here.'

'Got that right.' Hedge's gruff voice dropped to a murmur, like he was sharing a secret. 'You got a powerful way with the Mist, kid, if you can make all these people think they know you, but you can't fool me. I've been smelling monster for days now. I knew we had an infiltrator, but you don't smell like a monster. You smell like a half-blood. So who are you, and where'd you come from?'

Most of what the coach said didn't make sense, but Jason decided to answer honestly. 'I don't know who I am. I don't have any memories. You've got to help.'

Coach Hedge studied his face like he was trying to read Jason's thoughts.

'Great,' Hedge muttered. You're being truthful.'

'Of course I am! And what was all that about monsters and half-bloods? Are those code words or something?'

Hedge narrowed his eyes. Part of Jason wondered if the guy was just nuts. But the other part knew better.

'Look, kid,' Hedge said, 'I don't know who you are. I just know what you are, and it means trouble. Now I've got to protect three of you rather than two. Are you the special package? Is that it?'

'What are you talking about?'

Hedge looked at the storm. The clouds were getting thicker and darker, hovering right over the skywalk.

'This morning,' Hedge said, 'I got a message from camp. They said an extraction team is on the way. They're coming to pick up a special package, but they wouldn't give me details. I thought to myself, Fine. The two I'm watching are pretty powerful, older than most. I know they're being stalked. I can smell a monster in the group. I figure that's why the camp is suddenly frantic to pick them up. But then you pop up out of nowhere. So, are you the special package?'

The pain behind Jason's eyes got worse than ever. Half-bloods. Camp. Monsters. He still didn't know what what Hedge was talking about, but the words gave him a massive brain freeze - like his mind was trying to access information that should've been there but wasn't.

He stumbled, and Coach Hedge caught him. For a short guy, the coach had hands like steel. 'Whoa, there, cupcake. You say you've got no memories, huh? Fine. I'll just have to watch you, too, until the team gets here. We'll let the director figure things out.'

'What director?' Jason asked. 'What camp?'

'just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing happens before -'

Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.

'Piper! Get away from him! He is the monster!' Jason turned and saw the mysterious girl yelling to Piper.

'I had to say something,' Hedge grumbled. He bellowed into his megaphone: 'Everyone inside! The cows says moo! Off the skywalk!'

'I thought you said this thing was stable!' Jason shouted over the wind.

'Under normal circumstances,' Hedge agreed, 'which these aren't. Come on!'


	2. Chapter 2: Jason

The storm churned into a miniature hurricane. Funnel clouds snaked towards the skywalk like the tendrils of a monster jellyfish.

Kids screamed and ran for the building. The wind snatched away their notebooks, jackets, hats and backpacks. Jason skidded across the slick floor.

Leo lost his balance and almost toppled over the railing, but Jason grabbed his jacket and pulled him back.

"Thanks, man!" Leo yelled.

"Go, go, go!" shouted Coach Hedge.

Piper and Dylan were holding the doors open, herding the other kids behind. Piper's snowboarding jacket was flapping wildly behind her, her dark hair all in her face. Jason thought she must've been freezing, but she looked calm and confident - telling the other it would be okay, encouraging them to keep moving.

Jason, Leo and Coach Hedge ran towards them, but it was like running through quicksand. The wind seemed to fight them, pushing them back.

Dylan and Piper pushed one more kid inside, then they lost their grip on the doors. They slammed shut, closing off the skywalk.

Piper tugged at the handles. Inside, the kids pounded on the glass, but the doors seemed to be stuck.

"Dylan, help!" Piper shouted

Dylan just stood there with an idiotic grin, his Cowboys jersey rippling in the wind, like he was suddenly enjoying the storm. That was when Jason understood what the mysterious girl had shouted. Jason looked both ways and then saw her, near the edge to his right, crouching. Leo followed his gaze and saw her.

"Wow." Leo muttered. That's when she rubbed the charm of a dagger on her necklace and a bronze dagger with a leather bound hilt, appeared in her hands. Jason heard Leo gasp.

"Sorry, Piper,' Dylan said. 'I'm done helping."

He flicked his wrist an Piper flew backwards, slamming into the doors a sliding to the skywalk deck.

"Piper!" Jason tried to charge forward, but the wind was against him, and Coach Hedge pushed him back.

"Coach," Jason said, "Let me go!"

"Jason, Leo, stay behind me. This is my fight. I should've know that was our monster." the coach ordered, then he looked at the girl. "Azalea, you may need to do a sneak attack."

A small smile played on the girls lips, and she rolled her eyes. "What do you think I was doing? Might have to, more like will have to..." Coach Hedge glared at her remark.

"What?" Leo demanded. A rogue worksheet slapped him in the face, but he swatted it away. "What monster?"

Azalea gestured towards Dylan. The coach's hat then decided to blow away, and sticking up above his curly hair were two bumps - like the knots cartoon characters get when they're bonked on the head. Coach Hedge lifted his baseball bat - but it wasn't a regular bat any more. Somehow it had changed into a crudely shaped tree-branch club, with twigs and leaves still attached.

Dylan gave him that psycho happy smile. "Oh, come on, Coach. Let the boy attack me! After all, you're getting too old for this. Isn't that why they retired you to this stupid school? I've been on your team the entire season and you didn't even know. You're losing your nose, grandpa."

The coach made an angry sound like an animal bleating. "That's it, cupcake. You're going down."

"You think that you can protect four half-bloods at once, old man?" Dylan laughed. "Three, actually." Azalea called out, but Dylan ignored her.

Dylan pointed at Leo, and a funnel cloud materialised around him. Leo flew off the skywalk like he had been tossed. Somehow he managed to twist in mid air and slammed into the canyon wall. He skidded, clawing furiously at any hand hold. Finally he grabbed a thin ledge about fifty feet below the skywalk and hung there by his finger tips.

"Help!" He yelled up at them. "Rope, please? Bungee cord? Something?"

Azalea cursed and her dagger became a charm again. She ran towards the edge and jumped a perfect dive.

The coach slipped and his shoes fell off, and Jason almost had a coronary. The coach didn't have any feet. He had hooves - goat's hooves. Which meant the things on his head, Jason realised, weren't bumps. They were horns.

"You're a faun." Jason said.

"Satyr!" Hedge snapped. "Fauns are Roman, but we'll talk about that later."

At that moment Dylan shot a blast of wind at Coach Hedge, and he went hurtling over the edge. As Hedge flew over head, Azalea fell back into Leo's arms, and she quickly stepped away, although both were blushing majorly.

"Isn't that cute!" Dylan turned towards Jason. "Now it's your turn boy."

Jason threw the club that Coach hedge had dropped. It seemed useless with the winds so strong, but the club flew right at Dylan, even curving when he tried to dodge, and smacked him so hard on the head that he fell to his knees.

Piper wasn't as dazed as she appeared. Her fingers closed around the club when it rolled next to her, but before she could use it Dylan rose. Blood - golden blood - trickled from his forehead.

"Nice try, boy." He glared at Jason. "But you'll have to do better."

The skywalk shuddered. Hairline fractures appeared in the glass. Inside the museum, kids stopped banging on the doors. They backed away, watching in terror.

Dylan's body dissolved into smoke, as if his molecules were becoming unglued. He had the same face, the same brilliant white smile, but his whole form was suddenly composed of swirling black vapour, his eyes like electrical sparks in a living storm cloud. If angels could be evil, Jason decided, they would look exactly like this.

"You're a ventus," Jason said, though he had no idea how he knew that word. "A storm spirit."

Dylan's laugh sounded like a tornado tearing off a roof. "I'm glad I waited, demigod. Leo and Piper I've known about for weeks. Could've killed them at anytime. But my mistress said a third was coming - someone special. She'll reward me greatly for your death!"

Two more funnel clouds touched down on either side of Dylan and turned into venti - ghostly young men with smoky wings and eyes that flickered with lightning.

Piper stayed down, pretending that she was dazed, her hand still gripping the club. Her face was pale, but she gave Jason a determined look, and he understood the message: Keep them busy. I'll brain them from behind.

Cute, smart and violent. Jason wished he remembered having her as a girl friend.

He clenched his fists and got ready to charge, but he never got the chance.

Dylan raised his hand, arcs of electricity running between his fingers, and blasted Jason in the chest.

Bang! Jason found himself flat on his back. His mouth tasted like burning aluminium foil. He lifted his head and saw that his clothes were smoking. The lightning had gone straight through his body and blasted his left shoe off. His toes were black with soot.

The storm spirits were laughing. The winds raged. Piper was screaming defiantly, but it all sounded tinny and far away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Coach Hedge climbing the cliff with Leo on his back, but Azalea was nowhere to be seen. Piper was on her feet, desperately swinging the club to dent off the two extra storm spirits, but they were just toying with her. The club went right through their bodies like they weren't there. And Dylan, a dark winged tornado with eyes, loomed over Jason.

"Stop." Jason croaked. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and he wasn't sure who was more surprised: him or the storm spirits.

"How are you still alive?" Dylan's form flickered. "That was enough lightning to kill twenty men!"

"My turn." Jason said.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out the gold coin. He let his instincts take over, flipping the coin in the air like he'd done it a thousand times. He caught it in his palm, and suddenly he was holding a sword - a wicked sharp double edged weapon. The ridged grip fitted his fingers perfectly, and the whole thing was gold - hilt, handle and blade.

Dylan snarled and backed up. He looked at his two comrades and yelled, "Well? Kill him!"

The other storm spirits didn't look to happy with that order, but they flew at Jason, their fingers crackling with electricity.

Jason swung at the first spirit. His blade passed through it, and the creature's smoky form disintegrated. The second spirit let loose a bolt of lightning, but Jason's blade absorbed the charge. The spirit backed up - and a swipe of Azalea's dagger was all it took to finish it off.

Dylan wailed in outrage. He looked down as if expecting the comrades to re-form, but their gold dust remains dispersed in the wind. "Impossible! Who are you, half-blood?"

"Judging by the state you're in, I'm guessing it's talking to you." Azalea said, her voice slightly musical.

Piper was so stunned she dropped her club. "Jason, how...?"

Then Coach Hedge leaped back onto the skywalk and dumped Leo like a sack of flour

"Spirits, fear me!" Hedge bellowed, flexing his short arms. Then he looked around and realised there was only Dylan.

"Curse it, boy!" he snapped at Jason. "Didn't you leave some for me? I like a challenge!"

Leo got to his feet, breathing hard. He looked completely humiliated, his hands bleeding from clawing at the rocks. "Yo, Coach Supergoat, whatever you are - I just fell down the freaking Grand Canyon! Stop asking for challenges!"

Dylan hissed at them, but Jason could see fear in his eyes. "You have no idea how many many enemies you've awakened, half-bloods. My mistress will destroy all demigods. This war you cannot win."

Above them, the storm exploded into a full-force gale. Cracks expanded in the skywalk. Sheets of rain poured down, and Jason had to crouch to keep his balance. He was shocked to see that Azalea seemed to be perfectly dry, although the rest of them were getting rather damp from the sudden shower.

A hole opened in the clouds - a swirling vortex of black and silver.

"The mistress calls me back!" Dylan shouted with glee. "And you, demigod, will come with me!"

He lunged at Jason, but Piper tackled the monster from behind. Even though he was made of black smoke, Piper managed to make contact. Both of them went sprawling. Leo, Jason an the coach surged forward to help, but the spirit screamed with rage. He let loose a torrent that knocked them all back-wards. Jason, Azalea and Coach Hedge landed on their butts. Jason's sword skidded across the glass. Leo hit the back of his head and curled on his side, dazed and groaning. Piper got the worst of it. She was thrown off Dylan's back and hit the railing, tumbling over the side until she was hanging by one hand over the abyss.

Jason started towards her, but Dylan screamed, "I'll settle for this one!"

He grabbed Leo's arm and began to rise, towing a half-conscious Leo below him. The storm spun faster, pulling them upwards like a vacuum cleaner.

"Help!" Piper yelled. "Somebody!"

Then she slipped and fell. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Azalea rid the bow and quiver of arrows charm on her necklace, and suddenly in her hands was a full sized Bow, on her back a quiver of arrows, all of the archery set bronze. It looked like something out of the hunger games.

"Jason, go!" Hedge yelled. "Save her!"

Azalea let an arrow fly, and it should have pierced Dylan's heart, but it flew harmlessly through him. She cursed, and the coach launched himself at the spirit with some serious goat fu - lashing out with his hooves, knocking Leo free from the spirits grasp. Leo dropped safely to the floor, Azalea rushed over I help him, her archery set gone, but Dylan grappled the coach's arms instead.

Coach Hedge shouted down once more, "Save her! I've got this!" Then the satyr and the storm spirit spiralled into the clouds and disappeared.

Save her? Jason thought. She's gone!

But again his instincts won. He ran tithe railing, thinking, I'm a lunatic, and jumped over the side.

Jason wasn't scared of heights. He was scared of being smashed against the canyon floor five hundred feet below. He figured he hadn't accomplished anything except for dying along with Piper, but he tucked in his arms and plummeted head first. The sides of the canyon raced past like a film on fast- forward. His face felt like it was peeling off.

In a heartbeat, he caught up with Piper, who was flailing wildly. He grabbed her waist and closed his eyes, waiting for death. Piper screamed. The wind whistled in Jason's ears. He wondered what dying would feel like. He was thinking, probably not so good. He wished somehow they would never hit the bottom.

Suddenly the wind died. Piper's scream became a strangled gasp. Jason thought they must be dead, but he hadn't felt any impact.

"J-J-Jason." Piper managed.

He opened his eyes. They weren't falling. They were floating in midair, a hundred feet above the river.

He hugged Piper thought, and she repositioned herself so she was hugging him, too. They were nose to nose. Her heartbeat so hard Jason could feel it through her clothes.

He breath smelled like cinnamon. She said, "How did you -"

"I didn't," he said. "I think I would know if I could fly..."

But then he thought: I don't even know who I am.

He imagined going up. Piper yelped as they shot a few feet higher. They weren't exactly floating, Jason decided. He could feel pressure under his feet like they were balancing at the top of a geyser.

"The air is supporting us." he said.

"Well, tell it to support us more! Get us out of here!"

Jason looked down. The easiest thing would be to sink gently to the canyon floor. Then he looked up. The rain had stopped. The storm clouds didn't seem as bad, but they were still rumbling and flashing. There was no guarantee the spirits were gone for good. He had no idea what had happened to Coach Hedge. And he'd left Azalea up there, guarding herself and a barely conscious Leo.

"We have to help them," Piper said, as if reading his thoughts. "Can you -"

"Let's see." Jason thought, Up, and instantly they shot skywards.

The fact he was riding the wind might've been cool under different circumstances, but he was in too much shock. As soon as they landed on the skywalk, they ran to Leo and a shocked Azalea.

"You can, Fly?" Asked and amazed Azalea. Jason nodded once. Leo moaned. His army coat was soaked from the rain, although Azalea was perfectly dry. Leo's curly hair glittered gold from rolling around in monster dust. But at least he wasn't dead.

"Stupid... ugly... goat." he muttered.

"Where did he go?" Piper asked.

Leo pointed straight up. "Never came down. Please tell me he didn't actually save my life."

"Once." Jason said.

"Once and a half, actually," Azalea corrected him. "I got him from hanging from a ledge, but then put him on Hedge's back."

Leo groaned even louder. Azalea stood up. "What happened? The tornado guy, the gold sword... I hit my head. That's it, right? I'm hallucinating?" Leo questioned

Jason had forgotten about the sword. He walked over and picked it up. The blade was well balanced. He ran back to Azalea and held the blade underneath her chin. Her jaw dropped slightly from shock, then snapped shut again. Jason looked her in the eye, and noticed that instead of the usual black ring that surrounds the coloured part of a persons eyes, the ring in Azaleas was turquoise. She look confused for a second, then her lips curled back, revelling perfect, white teeth. In her eyes was a look of disgust and hatered.

"Why were you not affected at the beginning of the storm? What are you?" Jason demanded.

"I am a demigod, just like you, Leo and Piper. The only difference is that because I am a child of Poseidon, we most likely will not be brothers or sisters." Azalea snarled at him. Jason pulled away his sword, and on a hunch flipped it. Mid spin, the sword shrank back into a coin and landed in his palm.

"Yep," Leo said. "Definitely hallucinating."

Piper shivered in her rain soaked clothes. "Jason, those things -"

"Venti," he said. "Storm spirits."

"Okay. You acted like... like you'd seen them before. Who are you?"

He shook his head. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I don't know."

The storm dissipated. The other kids from the Wilderness School were staring out the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working in the locks now, but they didn't seem to be having any luck.

"Coach Hedge said he had to protect three people," Jason remembered. "I think he meant us. Well, not Azalea."

"And that thing Dylan turned into..." Piper shuddered. "God, I can't believe it was hitting on me. He called us... what, demigods?"

Leo lay on his back, staring at the sky. He didn't seem anxious to get up. "Don't know what Demi means," he said. "But I'm not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?" Azalea sighed.

There was a brittle sound like dry twigs snapping, and the cracks in the skywalk began to widen.

"We need to get off this thing," Jason said. "Maybe if we -"

"Ohhh-kay," Leo interrupted. "Look up there an tell me those aren't flying horses."

At first Jason thought Leo had hit his head too hard. Then he saw a dark shape descending from the east - too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer, he could see a pair of winged animals - grey, four-legged, exactly like horses - except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted box with two wheels: a chariot. Azalea was grinning like a little girl that had just got the best present ever.

"Reinforcements," Jason said. "Hedge told me that an extraction squad was coming for us."

"Extraction squad?" Leo struggled to his feet. "That sounds painful."

"And where are they extracting us to?" Piper asked.

"Camp Half-Blood." Azalea replied, and Piper recoiled.

Jason watched as the chariot landed on the far far end of the skywalk. The flying horses tucked in their wings and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot - a tall blonde girl maybe a little older than Jason, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. They both wore orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs. The girl leaped off the chariot before it even stopped moving. She pulled a knife and ran towards Jason's group while the bulky dude was reining in the horses.

"Where is he?" the girl demanded. Her grey eyes were fierce and a little startling.

"Where's who?" Jason asked.

She frowned like his answer was unacceptable. Then she turned to Leo and Piper. "Why about Gleeson? Where is your protector Gleeson Hedge?"

The coach's first name was Gleeson? Jason might've laughed if the morning hadn't been quite so weird and scary. Gleeson Hedge: football coach, goat man, protector of demigods. Sure. Why not?

Leo cleared his throat. "He got taken by some... tornado things"

"Venti," Jason said. "Storm spirits."

The blonde girl arched an eyebrow. "You mean anemoi thuelli? That's the Greek term. Who are you, and why happened?"

"My gods that's a confusing name to say." Azalea muttered.

Jason did his best, though it was hard to meet those intense grey eyes. About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which seemed a little unusual.

When Jason finished the story, the blonde girl didn't look satisfied. "No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I would find the answer." She turned to Azalea. "Please tell me you at least found something?"

Azalea cleared her throat. "Um, well you know that dream you got? Yeah, well..." She pointed at Jason's feet.

Jason hadn't thought much about it, but he was still missing his left shoe, which had been blown off by the lighting. His bare foot felt okay, but it looked like a lump of charcoal.

"The guy with one shoe," said the bald guy. "He's the answer."

"No, Butch." the girl insisted. "He can't be. I was tricked." she glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. "What do you want from me?" she screamed. "What have you done with him?"

The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently. Azalea calmed them down in a matter of seconds.

"Annabeth," said the bald dude, Butch. "We gotta leave. Let's get these three back to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."

She fumed for a moment. "Fine" She fixed Jason with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later."

She turned on her heel and marched towards the chariot.

Piper shook her head. "What's her problem? What's going on?"

"Seriously." Leo agreed.

"We have to get you out of here," Butch said. "I'll explain on the way."

"You'd better, 'cause you've been at camp longer than I have, and I don't know how." Azalea mumbled.

"I'm not going anywhere with her," Jason gestures towards the blonde. "She looks like she wants to kill me."

Butch hesitated, and Azalea glared at him. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem."

"What problem?" Piper asked.

"She's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing for three days," Butch said. "She's going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he'd be here."

"Who?" Jason asked, and Azalea and Leo looked curious.

"Her boyfriend," Butch said. "A guy named Percy Jackson."


	3. Chapter 3: Piper

After a morning of storm spirits, goat men and flying boyfriends, Piper should've been losing her mind. Instead, all she felt was dread.

It's starting, she thought. Just like the dream said.

She stood in the back of the chariot with Leo, Jason and Azalea, who was working on Leo's raw and bloody hands, while the bald guy, Butch, handled the reins, and the blonde girl, Annabeth, adjusted a bronze navigation device. They rose over the Grand Canyon and head east, icy wind ripping straight through Piper's Jacket. Behind them, more storm clouds were gathering.

The chariot lurched and bumped. It had no seat belts and the back was wide open, so Piper wondered if Jason would catch her again if she fell. That had been the most disturbing part of the morning - not that Jason could fly, but that he'd held her in his arms and yet didn't know who she was. Just as Piper had thought this, Azalea gave her a sympathetic glance.

All semester she'd worked on a relationship, trying to get Jason to notice her as more than a friend. Finally, she'd got the big dope to kiss her. The last few weeks had been the best of her life. And then, three nights ago, the dream had ruined everything - that horrible voice, giving her horrible news. She hadn't told anyone about it, not even Jason.

Now she didn't even have him. It was like someone had wiped his memory, and she was stuck in the worst 'do-over' of all time. She wanted to scream. Jason stood right next to her: those sky blue eyes, close-cropped blonde hair, that cute little scar in his upper lip. His face was kind and gentle, but always a little sad. And he just stared at the horizon, not even noticing her.

Meanwhile, Leo was being annoying, as usual. "This is so cool!" So Piper was grateful when this happened. "Hey, ow! What are you doing?" Leo yelped.

"Rubbing salt in a wound. You wouldn't have let me if I had told you." Azalea replied, smiling innocently.

"Next time you tell me." Leo muttered. He spat a Pegasus feather out of his mouth. "Where are we going?"

"A safe place," Annabeth said. "The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood."

"Half-Blood?" Piper was immediately on guard. She hated that word. She'd been called half-blood too many times - half Charokee, half white - and it was never a compliment. "Is that some kind of bad joke?"

"It means we're demigods," Jason said. "Half god, half mortal."

Annabeth looked back. "You seem to know a lot, Jason. But yes, demigods. My mom is Athena, goddess of wisdom. Butch here is the son of Iris, the rainbow goddess."

Leo choked. "Your mom is the rainbow goddess?"

"Got a problem with that?" Butch said.

"No, no," Leo said. "Rainbows, very macho."

"Butch I our best equestrian," Annabeth said. "He gets along great with the pegasi."

"Rainbows, ponies." Leo muttered.

"I'm gonna toss you off this chariot." Butch warned.

"And then you'll be in major trouble with a god." Azalea retorted.

"Demigods," Piper said. "You mean you think you're... you think we're -"

Lightning flashed. The chariot shuddered, and Jason yelled, "Left wheels on fire!"

Piper stepped back. Sure enough, the wheel was burning, white flames lapping up the side of the chariot.

The wind roared. Piper glanced behind them and saw dark shapes forming in the clouds, more storm spirits spiralling towards the chariot - except these looked more like horses than angels.

She started to say, "Why are they -"

"Anemoi come in different shapes," Annabeth said. "Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending how chaotic they are. Hold on. This is going to get rough."

"No, really? Well done, Sherlock." Azalea said sarcastically.

Butch flicked the reins. The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Piper's stomach crawled into her throat. Her vision went black, and when it came back to normal they where in a totally different place.

A cold grey ocean stretched out to the left. Snow covered fields, roads and forests spread to the right. Directly below them was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on three sides and water to the north. Piper saw a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake and a climbing wall that seemed to be in fire. But, before she could really process all she was seeing, their wheels came off and they dropped out of the sky.

Annabeth and Butch tried to maintain control. The pegasi laboured to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of six people was just too much.

"The lake!" Annabeth yelled. "Aim for the lake!"

Piper remembered something her dad had once told her, about hitting water from high being as bad as hitting cement.

And then - BOOM.

The biggest shock was the cold. She was underwater, so disoriented that she didn't know which way was up. She felt the water swirling around her, and she felt alert again.

She just had time to think: this would be a stupid way to die. Then faces appeared in the green murk - girls with long black hair and glowing yellow eyes. They smiled at her, grabbed her shoulders and hauled her up.

They tossed her, gasp and shivering, onto the shore. Nearby, Butch stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off of the pegasi. Fortunately, the horses Looked okay, but they had to be calmed down by Azalea. Jason, Leo and Annabeth were already in the shore, surrounded by kids giving them blankets and asking questions. Apparently kids fell into the lake a lot, because a detail of campers ran up with big bronze leaf-blower-looking things and blasted Piper with hot air, and in about two seconds her clothes were dry. She heard some people whispering, "Azalea has really harnessed her powers fast. Faster than Percy."

There were about twenty campers milling around - the youngest maybe nine, the oldest college age, eighteen or nineteen - and all them had orange T-shirts like Annabeth's. Piper looked back at the water and saw those strange girls just below the surface, their hair floating in the current. They waved like, toodle-oo, and disappeared into the depths. A second later, the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.

"Annabeth!" A guy with a bow and quiver on his back pushed through the crowd. "I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!"

"Will, I'm sorry," Annabeth sighed, and Azalea, who had materialised next to Piper. chuckled. "I'll get it fixed, I promise."

Will scowled at his broken chariot. Then he sized up Piper, Leo and Jason. "These are the ones? Way older than thirteen. Why haven't they been claimed already?"

"Claimed." Leo asked.

Before Annabeth could explain, Will said, "Any sign of Percy?"

"No." Annabeth admitted, and she and Azalea embraced.

The campers muttered. Piper had no idea Whi this guy Percy was, but his disappearance seemed to be a big deal.

Another girl stepped forward - tall, Asian, dark hair in ringlets, plenty of jewellery and perfect makeup. Somehow she managed to make jeans and an orange T-shirt look glamorous. She glanced at Leo, fixed her eyes in Jason like he might be worth her attention, then curled her lip at Piper as if she were a week old burrito that had just been pulled out of a Dumpster. Piper knew this girl's type. She's dealt with a lot of girl's like this at Wilderness School and every other stupid school her father had sent her to. Piper knew instantly they were going to be enemies.

"Well," the girl said. "I hope they're worth the trouble."

Leo snorted. "Gee, thanks. What are we, your new pets?"

"No kidding." Jason said. "How about some answers before you judge us - like, what is this place, why are we here, an how long do we have to stay?"

Piper had the same questions, but a wave of anxiety washed over her. Worth the trouble. If they only knew about her dream. They had no idea...

"Jason," Annabeth said. "I promise we'll answer your questions. And, Drew -" she said frowning at the glamour girl - "All demigods are worth saving. But I'll admit the trip didn't accomplish what I hoped."

"Hey," Piper said. "We didn't ask to be brought here."

Drew sniffed. "And nobody wants you, hon. Does you hair always look like a dead badger?"

Piper stepped forward, ready to smack her, but was stopped by Azalea saying, "Well at least she has the decency of standing up to a storm spirit for her friends. Oh, and a dead badger? Kinda rich coming from the queen of over doing it herself."

This time, it was Drew wanting to smack Azalea, so Piper stopped. She wasn't a bit scared of Drew, but Azalea didn't seem like somebody she wanted for an enemy.

"We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome," Annabeth said, with another pointed look at Drew. "We'll assign them each a guide, give them a tour of camp. Hopefully by campfire tonight they'll be claimed."

"Would somebody please tell me what claimed means?" Piper asked.

Suddenly, there was a collective gasp. The campers backed away. At first Piper thought she'd done something wrong. Then she realised their faces were bathed in a strange red light, as if someone had lit a torch behind her. She turned and almost forgot how to breathe.

Floating over Leo's head was a blazing holographic image - a fiery hammer.

"That," Annabeth said. "Is claiming."

"What'd I do?" Leo backed towards the lake. Then he glanced up and yelped. "Is my hair on fire?" He ducked, but the symbol followed him, bobbing and weaving so it looked like he was trying to write something in flames. Azalea was just laughing.

"This can't be good," Butch muttered, ignoring the fact that a few feet away Azalea was in hysterics. "The curse -"

"Butch, shut up," Annabeth said, also ignoring Azalea. "Leo, your just been claimed -"

"By a god," Jason interrupted, and Azaleas laughter turned into a mixture of a gasp and a choke. "That's the symbol of Vulcan, isn't it?"

All eyes turned to him.

"Jason," Annabeth said carefully, "how did you know that?"

"I'm not sure."

"Vulcan?" Leo demanded. "I don't even LIKE star trek. What are you talking about?"

"Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus," Annabeth explained. "The god of blacksmiths and fire."

The fiery hammer faded, but Leo kept swatting the air like he was afraid it was following him. "The god of what? Who?"

Annabeth turned to Azalea. "Azalea, would you take Leo, give him a tour? Introduce him to his bunk mates in Cabin Nine."

"Sure, Annabeth."

"What's Cabin Nine?" Leo asked. "And I am not a Vulcan!"

"Come on, Mr Spock, I'll explain everything." Azalea put a hand on his shoulder and steered him off to the cabins.

Annabeth turned her attention back to Jason. Usually Piper didn't like it when other girls checked out her boyfriend, but Annabeth didn't seem to care that he was a good-looking guy. She studied him more like he was a complicated blueprint. Finally she said, "Hold out your arm."

Piper saw what she was looking at, and her eyes widened.

Jason had taken off his windbreaker after his dip in the lake, leaving his arms bare, and on the inside of his right forearm was a tattoo. How had Piper never noticed it before? She'd looked at Jason's arms a million times. The tattoo couldn't have just appeared, but it was darkly etched, impossible to miss: a dozen straight lines like a bar code, and over that an eagle with the letters SPQR.

"I've never seen marks like this." Annabeth said. "Where did you get them?"

Jason shook his head. "I'm getting really tired of saying this, but I don't know."

The other campers pushed forward, trying to get a look at Jason's tattoo. The marks seemed to bother them a lot - almost like a declaration of war.

"They look burned into your skin." Annabeth noticed.

"They were,"Jason said. Then he wincedas if his head was aching. "I mean... I think so. I don't remember."

No one said anything. It was clear the campers saw Annabeth as the leader. They were waiting for her verdict.

"He needs to go straight to Chiron," Annabeth decided. "Drew, would you -"

"Absolutely." Drew laced her arm through Jason's. "This way, sweetie. I'll introduce you to our director. He's... an interesting guy." She flashed Piper a smug look and led Jason towards the big blue house on the hill.

The crowd began to disperse, until it was only Annabeth and Piper left.

"Who's Chiron?" Piper asked. "Is Jason in some kind of trouble."

Annabeth hesitated. "Good question, Piper. Come in, I'll give you a tour. We need to talk."

* * *

Ok, so I have decided the next realchapter I'll miss, because nothing really happens other than Piper passing out, so I will be jumping straight to the first Leo chapter. Hope you guys are enjoying it so far!


	4. Chapter 4: Leo

Leo's tour was going great until he learned about the dragon.

The Poseidon girl, Azalea Blue, seemed pretty cool, and pretty. Everything she showed Leo was so amazing it should've been illegal. Real Greek warships moored that the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts-and-crafts sessions where you could make a sculpture with chain saws and blowtorches? Leo was like, sign me up! The woods were stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone? Nice! And the camp was overflowing with fine looking girls, his tour guide included. Leo didn't quite understand the whole related-to-the-gods business, but he hoped that didn't mean he was cousins with all these ladies. That would suck. At the very least, he wanted to check out those underwater girls in the lake again. They were definitely worth drowning for.

Azalea showed him the cabins, the dining pavilion and the sword arena.

"Do I get a sword?" Leo asked.

Azalea glanced at him like she found the idea amusing. "You'll probably make your own, seeing as how you're in Cabin Nine."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Vulcan?"

"Usually we don't call the gods by their Roman names," Azalea said. "The original names are Greek. Your dad is Hephaestus."

"Festus?" Leo had heard someone say that before, but he was still dismayed. "Sounds like the god of cowboys."

"He-phaestus," Azalea corrected. "God of blacksmiths and fire."

Leo had heard that, too, but he was trying not to think about it. The god of fire... seriously? Considering what had happened to his mom, that seemed like a sick joke. Azalea's steps faltered, and when recovered from that, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. She then turned to Leo and said, "I'm sorry about your mother."

It took a few seconds for Leo to recover, but he did.

"So the flaming hammer over my head," Leo said. "Good thing or bad thing?"

Will took a while to answer. "You were claim almost immediately. That's usually good."

"But that Rainbow Pony dude, Butch - he mentioned a curse."

"Ah... look, it's nothing. Since Cabin Nine's last head counsellor died -"

"Died? Like, painfully?"

"I ought to let your bunk mates tell you about it... Yeah, I don't really know the story."

"Where are my home dawgs? Shouldn't their counsellor be giving me the VIP tour?"

"He, um, can't. You'll see why." Azalea forged ahead before Leo could ask anything else.

"Curses and death," Leo said to himself. "This just gets better and better."

He was halfway across the green when he spotted his old babysitter. And she was not the kind of person he expected to see at a demigod camp.

Leo froze in his tracks.

"What's wrong?" Azalea asked.

Tía Callida - Auntie Callida. That's what she'd called herself, but Leo hadn't seen her since he was five years old. She was just standing there, in the shadow of a big white cabin at the end of the green, watching him. She wore a black linen widow's dress, with a black shawl pulled over her hair. Her face hadn't changed - leathery skin, piercing dark eyes. Her withered hands were like claws. She looked ancient, but no different than Leo remembered.

"That old lady..." Leo said. "What's she doing here?"

Azalea tried to follow his gaze. "What old lady?"

"Girl, the old lady. The one in black. How many old ladies do you see over there."

Azalea saw something, her eyes widened, and she gulped, but she shifted uncomfortably, and simply said, "You've had a long day, Leo. How about we head straight to you cabin now?"

Leo wanted to protest, but when back towards the big white cabin Tía Callida was gone. He was sure she'd been there, almost as if thinking about his mom had summoned Callida back from the past.

And that wasn't good, because Tía Callida had tried to kill him.

"Just messing with you, girl." Leo pulled some gears and levers from his pockets and started fiddling with them to calm his nerves. He couldn't have everybody at camp thinking he was crazy. At least, not crazier than he already was.

"Let's go see Cabin Nine," he said. "I'm in the mood for a good curse."

From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked more like an oversized motorhome with shiny metal walls and metal-slatted windows. The entrance was like a bank vault door, circular and several feet thick. It opened with lots of brass gears turning and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke.

Leo whistled. "They've got a steam punk theme going on, huh?" Azalea laughed.

Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. High-tech steel bunks were folded against the walls. Each digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems and interlocking gears. Leo figured each camper had his own combination lock to release his bed, and there was probably an alcove behind it with storage, maybe some traps to keep out unwanted visitors. At least, that's the way Leo would've designed it. A fire pole came down from the floor above, even though the cabin didn't appear to have another floor from the outside. A circular staircase led down into some kind of basement. The walls were lined with every time of power tool Leo could imagine, plus a huge assortment of knives, swords and other implements of destruction. A large work bench overflowed with scrap metal - screws, bolts, washers, nails, rivets and a million other machine parts. Leo had a strong urge to shovel them all into his coat pockets. He loved that kind of stuff. But he'd need a hundred more coats to fit is all.

Looking around, he could almost imagine he was in his mom's machine ship. Not the weapons, maybe - but the tools, the piles of scrap, the smell of grease and metal and hit engines. She would've loved this place.

He pushed the though away. He didn't like painful memories. Keep moving - that was his motto. Don't dwell on things. Don't stay in one place for too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.

He pick a long implement from the wall. "A weed whacker? What does the god of fire want with a weed whacker?"

Azalea shrugged, but a voice in the shadows said, "You'd be surprised."

At the back of the room, one of the bunk beds was occupied. A curtain of dark material retraced, and Leo could see the guy who had been invisible a second before. It was hard to tell much about him, because he was covered in a body cast. His head was wrapped in gauze except for his face, which was puffy and bruised. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a beat-down.

"I'm Jake Mason," the guy said. "I'd shake your hand, but..."

"Yeah," Leo said. "Don't get up."

The guy cracked a smile, then winced like it hurt to move his face. Leo wondered what had happened to him, but he was afraid to ask.

"Welcome to Cabin Nine," Jason said. "Been almost a year since we had any new kids. I'm head counsellor for now."

"For now?" Leo asked.

Azalea Blue cleared her throat. "So where is everybody, Jake?"

"Down at the forges," Jake said wistfully. "They're working on... you know, that problem."

"Oh." Azalea changed the subject. "So you got a spare bed for Leo?"

Jake studied Leo, sizing him up. "You believe in curses, Leo? Or ghosts?"

I just saw my evil babysitter Tía Callida, Leo thought. She's got to be dead after all these years. And I can't go a day without remembering my mom in that machine shop fire.

Don't talk to me about ghosts, doughboy.

But aloud, he said, "Ghosts? Pfft. Nah. I'm cool. A storm spirit chucked me down the Grand Canyon this morning, but you know, all in a day's work, right?"

Jake nodded. "That's good. Because I'll give you the best bed in the cabin - Beckendorf's."

Leo saw Azalea taking a large breath, and then let it out slowly.

Jake called out: "Bunk 1-A, please."

The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiralled open like a camera lens, and a full-size bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in the headboard, a glass refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side.

Leo jumped right in and lay back with arms behind his head. "I can handle this."

"It retracts into a private room below." Jake said.

"Oh, heck, yes," Leo said. "See y'all. I'll be down in the Leo Cave. Which button do I press?"

"Hold on," Azalea protested. "You guys have private underground rooms?"

Jake probably would've smiled if it didn't hurt so much. "We've got lots of secrets, Azalea. You other campers can't have all the fun. Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under Cabin Nine for almost a century. We still haven't found the end. Anyway, Leo, if you don't mind sleeping in a dead man's bed, it's yours."

Suddenly Leo didn't feel like kicking back. He sat up, careful not to touch any of the buttons. "The counsellor who died - this was his bed?"

"Yeah," Jake said. "Charles Beckendorf."

Leo imagined saw-blades coming through the mattress, or maybe a grenade sewn inside the pillows. "He didn't, like, die in this bed, did he?"

"No," Jake said. "In the Titan War, last summer."

"The Titan War," Leo repeated, "which has nothing to do with this very fine bed?"

"The Titans," Azalea said, like Leo was an idiot. "The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new place on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost Destroyed Mount Olympus. A lot of demigods died trying to stop them."

"I'm guessing this wasn't on the news?" Leo said.

It seemed like a fair question, but Azalea shook her head in disbelief. "You didn't hear about Mount St Helen's erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St Louis? I was still living in England and I heard about it."

Leo shrugged. Last summer, he'd been on the run from another foster home. Then a truancy officer caught him in New Mexico, and the court sentenced him to the nearest correction facility - the Wilderness School. "Guess I was busy."

"Doesn't matter," Jake said. "You were lucky to miss it. Azalea read about it from a book called 'Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian'. The thing is Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then -"

"Your cabin's been cursed." Leo guessed.

Jake didn't answer. Then again, the dude was in a body cast. That was an answer. Leo started to notice little things that he hadn't seen before - an explosion mark on the wall, a stain on the floor that might've been oil... or blood. Broken swords and smashed machines kicked into the corners of the room, maybe out of frustration. This place did feel unlucky.

Jake sighed halfheartedly. "Well, I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be... really nice."

He closed his eyes, and the camouflage curtain drew itself across the bed.

"Come on, Leo," Azalea said. "I'll take you to the forges."

As they were leaving, Leo looked back at his new bed, and he almost imagine a dead counsellor sitting there - another ghost who wasn't going to leave Leo alone.


	5. Chapter 5: Leo

"How did he die?" Leo asked. "I mean Beckendorf."

Azalea trudged ahead. "Explosion. Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn't make it out."

There was that name again - Percy Jackson, Annabeth's missing boyfriend. That guy must've been into everything around here, Leo thought.

"So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "Well, I mean before he blew up?"

"Everyone says he was awesome," Azalea told him. "It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake - he became head counsellor in the middle of the war. Jake did his best, but he never wanted to be a leader. He just likes building stuff. Then after the war things started to go wrong. Cabin Nine's chariots blew up. Their automatons went haywire. Their inventions started to malfunction. It was like a curse, and eventually people started calling it that - the Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jake had his accident -"

"Which had something to do with the problem he mentioned." Leo guessed.

"Personally, I don't like the problem, but not in the way others would think. And judging by your reaction on the chariot to being a demigod, you won't either." Azalea said without enthusiasm. "And here we are."

The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. White marble columns line the soot stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. Leo heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring and hammers ringing on anvils.

They stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who'd been working in various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.

"Hey, guys," Azalea said. "This is your new brother, Leo - um, what's your surname?"

"Valdez." Leo looked around at the other campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from some big families, but he'd always just had his mom - until she died.

The kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names started to blur together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorbike). Leo knew he'd never keep everyone straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming.

None of them looked like the others - all different face types, skin tone, hair colour, height. You'd never think, Hey, look, it's the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with callouses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.

All the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Leo counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Tubigrip bandages, and about seven thousand Band-Aids.

"Well, all right!" Leo said. "I hear this is the party cabin!"

Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.

Azalea patted Leo's shoulder. "I'll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it's time?"

"I've got it." one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms and a red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.

"Cool," Leo said. "I always wanted a sister who could beat me up."

"Well, think again. Try asking my younger brother Jet. He doesn't like it." Azalea said, smiling, then walked out.

Nyssa didn't smile. "Come on, joker boy. I'll show you around.

Leo was no stranger to workshops. He'd grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. His mom used to joke that his first pacifier was a lug wrench. But he'd never seen any place like the camp forge.

One guy was working on a battleaxe. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the axe cut into the slab like it was made out of warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.

"What's he planning to kill with that thing?" Leo asked Nyssa. "A battleship?"

"You never know. Even with Celestial bronze -"

"That's the metal?"

She nodded. "Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrates monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instance -"

"You mean dragons?"

"Similar species. You'll learn the difference in monster-fighting class."

"Monster-fighting class. Yeah, already got my black belt in that."

She didn't crack a smile. Leo hoped she wasn't this serious all the time. His dad's side of the family had to have some sense of humour, right?

"If you want funny, go to the Hermes Cabin, the Poseidon Cabin, or occasionally the Apollo Cabin." Nyssa stated.

They passed a couple of guys making a bronze wind-up toy. At least that's what it looked like. It was a six inch tall centaur - half man, half horse - armed with a miniature bow. One of the campers cranked the centaur's tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, yelling, "Die, mosquito! Die, mosquito!" and shooting everything in sight.

Apparently this had happened before, because everybody knew to hit the floor except Leo. Six needle-sized arrows embedded themselves in his shirt before a camper grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to pieces.

"Stupid curse!" the camper waved his hammer to the sky. "I just want a magic bug killer! Is that too much to ask?"

"Ouch." Leo said.

Nyssa pulled the needles out of his shirt. "Ah, you're fine. Let's move on before they re-build it."

Leo rubbed his chest as they walked. "That sort of thing happen a lot?"

"Lately," Nyssa said. "everything we build turns to junk."

"The curse?"

Nyssa frowned. "I don't believe in curses, but something's wrong. And if we don't figure out he dragon problem, it's going to get even worse."

"The dragon problem?" Leo hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, maybe one that killed cockroaches or something, but he got the feeling he wasn't going to be so lucky.

Nyssa took him over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the camp - a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound on the north shore, the woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.

"It's got to be the hills." the first girl said.

"We looked in the hills," the second argued. "The woods are a better hiding place."

"But we already set traps -"

"Hold up," Leo said. "You guys lost a dragon? A real full sized dragon?"

"It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa said. "But, yes, it's a life-size automaton. Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back, when Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it. It's been helping protect the camp, but, um, it's a little unpredictable."

"Unpredictable." Leo repeated.

"It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs."

"That's pretty unpredictable."

Nyssa nodded. "Beckendorf was the only one that could it. Then he died, and the dragon just got worse and worse. Finally it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes everything and runs away again. Everyone expects us to find it and destroy it -"

"Destroy it?" Leo was appalled. "You've got a life sized bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?"

"It breaths fire," Nyssa explained. "It's deadly and outbid control."

"But it's a dragon! Dude, that's so awesome! Can't you try talking to it, controlling it?"

"We tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw how well that worked."

Leo thought about Jake, still wrapped in a body cast, lying alone on his bunk. "Still -"

"There's no other option." Nyssa turned to the other girls. "Let's try more traps in the woods - here, here and here. Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil."

"The dragon drinks that?" Leo asked.

"Yeah." Nyssa sighed regretfully. "He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he springs a trap, we can come in with acid sprayers - that should melt through his hide. The we can get metal cutters and... finished the job."

They all looked sad. Leo realised they didn't want to kill the dragon any more than he did.

"Guys," Leo pleaded. "There has to be another way."

Nyssa looked doubtful, but a few other campers stopped what they were working on and drifted over to hear the conversation.

"Like what?" one asked. "The thing breathes fire. We can't even get close."

Fire, Leo thought. Oh, man, the things he could tell them about fire... But he had to be careful, even if these were his brothers and sisters. Especially if he had to live with them.

"Well..." He hesitated. "Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don't any of you have like fire resistance or something?"

Nobody acted as if it were a crazy question, which was a relief, but Nyssa shook her head gravely.

"That's a cyclops ability, Leo. Demigod children of Hephaestus... we're just good with our hands. We're builders, craftsmen, weapon smiths - stuff like that."

Leo's shoulders slumped. "Oh."

A guy in the back said, "Well, a long time ago -"

"Yeah, okay," Nyssa conceded. "A long time ago some children of Hephaestus were born with the power over fire. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that had been born in centuries. The last one..." She looked at one of the other kids for help.

"Sixteen sixty-six," the girl offered. "A guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the great fire of London, destroyed most of he city."

"Right," Nyssa said. "When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don't need any more catastrophes."

Leo tried to keep his face clear of emotion, which wasn't his strong suit. "I guess I see your point. Too bad, though. If you could resist the flames, you could get close to the dragon."

"Then it would kill you with its claws and fangs," Nyssa said. "Or simply step on you. No, we've got to destroy it. Trust me, if anyone could figure out another answer..."

She didn't finish, but Leo got the message. This was the cabin's big test. If they could do something only Beckendorf could do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured out how would be a hero.

A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting away their tools and projects. Leo hadn't realized it was getting so late, but he looked through the window and saw the sun going down. His ADHD did that to him sometimes. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam - the day was over.

"Dinner," Nyssa said. "Come on, Leo."

"Up at the pavilion, right?" He asked.

She nodded.

"You guys go ahead," Leo said. "Can you... give me a second?"

Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened. "Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill if you're not careful."

"No touching." Leo promised.

His cabinmates filed out of the forge. Soon Leo was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels and small machines clicking and whirring.

He stared at the map of camp - the locations where his newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. He remember what Azalea said, and realised what she meant. It was wrong. Plain wrong

Very rare, he thought. And always dangerous.

He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not calloused like the other Hephaestus campers'. Leo had never been the biggest or strongest kid. He'd survives in tough neighbourhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he'd learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren't scared, you usually didn't get beaten up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humour was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over.

There was a Plan C, but he'd promised himself never to use it again.

He felt an urge to try it now - something he hadn't done since the accident, since his mom's death.

He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up - pins and needles. Then the flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.


	6. Chapter 6: Piper

The whole campfire idea freaked Piper out. It made her think o the huge purple bonfire in her dreams and her father tied to a stake.

What she got was almost as terrifying: a sing along. The amphitheatre steps were carved into the side of a hill, facing a stone-lined fire pit. Fifty or sixty kids filled the rows, clustered into groups under various banners.

Piper spotted Jason in the front next to Annabeth. Leo was nearby, sitting with a bunch of burly-looking kids under a steel grey banner emblazoned with a hammer. Near by, Azalea sat by herself under a royal blue banner embroided with a blue-tinged-silver trident. She saw Piper and waved. Standing in the front of the fire, half a dozen campers with guitars and strange, old-fashioned harps - lyres? - were jumping around, leading a song about pieces of armour, something about how their grandma got dressed for war. Everybody was singing with them and making gestures for the pieces of armour and joking around. It was quite possibly the weirdest thing Piper had ever seen - one of those campfire songs would've been completely embarrassing in daylight, but in the dark, with everyone participating, it was kind of corny and fun. As the energy level got higher, the flames did, too, turning from red to orange to gold.

Finally the song ended with a lot of rowdy applause. A guy on a horse trotted up. At least in the flickering light Piper thought it was a guy on a horse. Then she realized it was a centaur - his bottom half a white stallion, his top half a middle-aged guy with curly hair and a trimmed beard. He brandished a spear impaled with toasted marshmallows. "Very nice! And a special welcome to our new arrivals. I am Chiron, camp activities director, and I am happy you all have all arrived here alive and with most of your limbs attached. In a moment, I promise we will get to s'mores, but first -"

"What about capture the flag?" somebody yelled. Grumbling broke out among some kids in armour, sitting under a red banner with the emblem of a boar's head.

"Yes," the centaur said. "I know the Ares cabin is anxious to return to the woods for our regular games."

"And kill people!" one of them shouted.

"However," Chiron said, "until the dragon is brought under control, that won't be possible. Cabin Nine, anything to report on that?"

He turned to Leo's group. Leo winked at Piper and shot her with a finger gun. The girl next to him stood uncomfortably. She wore an army jacket a lot like Leo's, with her hair covered in a red bandanna. "We're working on it."

More grumbling.

"How, Nyssa?" an Ares kid demanded.

"Really hard." the girl said.

Nyssa sat down to a lot of yelling and complaining, which caused the fire to splutter chaotically.

"Will you please shut up!" Azalea shouted at the Ares kids, and everyone else who was making a fuss over capture the flag.

"Or what, Water Girl?" a girl for Ares sneered.

"Or," Azalea took the time to smile innocently. "By the end of campfire, you will be doused in toilet water."

The campers fell silent.

"We have to be patient," Chiron said. "In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to discuss."

"Percy?" someone asked. The fire dimmed even further, but Piper didn't need the mood flames to sense the crowd's anxiety.

Chiron gestured to Annabeth. She took a deep breath and stood.

"I didn't find Percy," she announced. Her voice caught a little when she said his name. "He wasn't at the Grand Canyon like I thought. Grover, Tyson, Nico, the Hunters of Artemis - everyone's looking. We will find him. Chiron's talking about something different. A new quest."

"It's a Great Prophecy, isn't it?"

Everyone turned. The voice had come from a group in the back, sitting under a rose-coloured banner with a dove emblem. They'd been chatting among themselves and not paying much attention until their leader stood up: Drew.

Everyone else looked surprised. Apparently Drew didn't address the crowd very often.

"Drew?" Annabeth said. "What do you mean?"

"Well, come on." Drew spread her hands like the truth was obvious. "Olympus is closed. Percy's disappeared, and a few hours after we find out about him missing a daughter of Poseidon turns up." Everyone turned to look at Azalea, who shifted uncomfortably. "Hera sends you a vision and you come back with three new demigods in one day. I mean, something weird is going on. The Great Prophecy has started, right?"

Piper whispered to Rachel, "What's she talking about - the Great Prophecy?"

Then she realized everyone else was looking at Rachel, too.

"Well?" Drew called down. "You're the Oracle. Has it started or not?"

Rachel's eyes looked scary in the firelight. Piper was afraid she might clench up and start channelling a freaky peacock goddess again, but she stepped forward calmly and addressed the crowd.

"Yes," she said. "The Great Prophecy has begun."

Pandemonium broke out.

Piper caught Jason's eye. He mouthed, are you alright? She nodded and managed a smile, but then looked away. It was to painful seeing him and not being with him.

When the talking finally subsided, Rachel took another step towards the audience, and fifty-plus demigods leaned away from her, as if one skinny redheaded mortal was more intimidating than all of them put together.

"For those of you who have not heard it," Rachel said. "the Great Prophecy was my first prediction. It arrived in August. It goes like this:

Eight half-bloods shall answer the call.

To storm or fire the world must fall -"

Jason shot to his feet. His eyes looked wild, like he'd just been tasered.

Even Rachel seemed caught off guard. "J-Jason?" she said. "What's -"

"Ut cum spiritu postrema sacramentum dejuremus," he chanted. "Et hostes ornamenta addent ad ianuam necem."

An uneasy silence settled on the group. Piper could see from their faces that several of them were trying to translate the lines. She could tell it was Latin, but she wasn't sure why her hopefully future boyfriend was suddenly chanting like a Catholic priest.

"You just... finished the prophecy," Rachel stammered. "- An oath to keep with a final breath/And foes bear arms to the doors of death. How did you -"

"I know those lines." Jason winced and put his hands to his temples. "I don't know how, but I know that prophecy."

"In Latin, no less," Drew called out. "Handsome and smart."

There was some giggling from the Aphrodite cabin. God, what a bunch of losers, Piper thought. But it didn't do much to break the tension. The campfire was burning a chaotic, nervous shade of green.

Jason sat down, looking embarrassed, but Annabeth put a hand on his shoulder and muttered something reassuring. Piper felt a pang of jealousy. It should've been her next to him, comforting him.

Rachel Dare still looked a little shaken. She glanced back at Chiron for guidance, but the centaur stood still and silent, as if he were watching a play he couldn't interrupt - a tragedy that ended with a lot of people dead onstage.

"Well," Rachel said, trying to regain her composure. "So, yeah, that's the Great Prophecy. We hoped it might not happen for years, but I fear it's starting now. I can't give you proof. It's just a feeling. And, like Drew said, some weird stuff is happening. The eight demigods, whoever they are, have not been gathered yet. I get the feeling some are here tonight. Some are not here."

The campers began to stir and mutter, looking at each other nervously, until a drowsy voice in the crowd called out, "I'm here! Oh... were you calling roll?"

"Go back to sleep, Clovis!" someone yelled, and a lot of people laughed.

"Anyway," Rachel continued. "we don't know what the Great Prophecy means. We don't know what challenge the demigods will face, but since the first Great Prophecy predicted the Titan War, we can guess the second Great Prophecy will predict something at least that bad."

"Or worse." Chiron murmured.

Maybe he didn't mean everyone to overhear, but they did. The campfire immediately turned dark purple, the same colour as Piper's dream.

"What we do know," Rachel said. "is that the first phase has begun. A major problem has arisen, and we need a quest to sole it. Hera, the queen of gods, has been taken."

Shocked silence. Then fifty demigods started talking at the same time.

Chiron pounded his hoof again, but Rachel still had to wait before she could get back their attention.

She told them about the incident on the Grand Canyon skywalk - how Gleeson Hedge had sacrificed himself when the storm spirits attacked, and the spirits had warned it was only the beginning. They apparently served some great mistress who would destroy all demigods.

Then Rachel told them about Piper passing out in Hera's cabin. Piper tried to keep a calm expression, even when she noticed Drew in the back row, pantomiming a faint, and her friends giggling. Finally Rachel told them about Jason's vision in the living room of the big house. The message Hera had delivered was so similar that Piper got a chill. The only difference: Hera had warned Piper not to betray her: Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. Hera knew about the giant's threat. But, if that was true, why hadn't she warned Jason and exposed Piper as an enemy agent?

"Jason," Rachel said. "Um... do you remember your last name?"

He looked self-conscious, but he shook his head.

"We'll just call you Jason, then," Rachel said. "It's clear that Hera herself has issued you a quest."

Rachel paused, as if giving Jason a chance to protest his destiny. Everyone's eyes were on him; there was so much pressure Piper thought she would've buckled in his position. Yet he looked brave and determined. He set his jaw and nodded. "I agree."

"You must save Hera to prevent a great evil," Rachel continued. "Some sort of king is rising. For reasons we don't yet understand, it must happen by the winter solstice, only four days from now."

"That's the council day of the gods," Annabeth said. "If the gods don't already know Hera's gone, they'll definitely notice her absence by then. They'll probably break out fighting, accusing each other of taking her. That's what they usually do."

"The winter solstice," Chiron spoke up, "is also the time of greatest darkness. The gods gather that day, as mortals always have, because there is strength in numbers. The solstice is a day when evil magic is strong. Ancient magic, older than the gods. It is a day when things... Stir."

The way he said it, stirring sounded absolutely sinister - like it should be a first-degree felony, not something you did to cookie dough.

"Okay," Annabeth said, glaring at the centaur. "Thank you, Captin Sunshine. Whatever's going on, I agree with Rachel. Jason has been chosen to lead this quest, so-"

"Why hasn't he been claimed?" Somebody from the Ares cabin yelled. "If he's so important -"

"Toilet water!" Azalea threatened the Ares campers. Piper had almost forgotten about her.

"He has been claimed," Chiron announced. "Long ago. Jason, give them a demonstration."

At first, Jason didn't seem to understand. He stepped forward nervously, but Piper couldn't help thinking how amazing he looked with his blond hair glowing in the firelight, his regal features like a Roman statue's. He glanced at Piper, and she nodded encouragingly. She mimicked flipping a coin.

Jason reached into his pocket. His coin flashed in the air, and when he caught it in his hand, he was holding a lance - a rod of gold. About seven feet long, with a spear tip at one end.

The other demigods gasped. Rachel and Annabeth stepped back to avoid the point, which looked as sharp as an ice pick.

"Wasn't that..." Annabeth hesitated. "I thought you had a sword."

"Um, it came up tails, I think," Jason said. "Same coin, long ranged weapon form."

"Dude, I want one!" yelled somebody from Ares cabin.

"Better than Clarisse's electric spear!" one of his brothers agreed.

"Electric," Jason murmured, like that was a good idea. "Back away."

Annabeth and Rachel got the message. Jason raised the javelin, and thunder broke open the sky. Every hair on Piper's arms stood up. Lightning arced down through the golden spear point and hit the campfire with the force of an artillery shell.

When the smoke cleared, and the ringing in Piper's ears subsided, the entire camp sat frozen in shock, half blind, covered in ashes, staring at the place where the fire had been. Cinders rained down everywhere. A burning log had impaled itself a few inches from the sleeping kid Clovis, who hadn't even stirred.

Jason lowered his lance. "Um... sorry."

Chiron brushed some burning coals out of his beard. He grimaced as if his worst fears had been confirmed. "A little overkill, perhaps, but you've made your point. And I believe we know who your father is."

"Jupiter," Jason said. "I mean Zeus, Lord of the Sky."

Piper couldn't help smiling. It made perfect sense. The most powerful god, the father of all the greatest heroes in the ancient myths - no one else could possibly be Jason's dad.

Apparently, the rest of the camp wasn't so sure. Everything broke into chaos, with dozens of people asking questions until Annabth raised her arms.

"Hold it!" she said. "How can he be the son of Zeus? The Big Three... their pact not to have mortal kids... how could we have not known about him sooner?"

Chiron didn't answer, but Piper got the feeling he knew. And the truth was not good.

"The important thing is," Rachel said. "that Jason is here now and he has a quest to fulfil. That means he will need his own prophecy."

She closed her eyes and swooned. Two campers rushed forward and caught her. A third ran to the side of the amphitheatre and grabbed a bronze three-legged stool, like they'd been trained for this duty. They eased Rachel onto the stool in front of the ruined hearth. Without fire, the night was dark, but green mist started swirling around Rachel's feet. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing. Emerald smoke issued from her mouth. The voice that came out was raspy and ancient - the sound a snake would make if it could talk:

'Child of lighting, beware the earth,

The giants' revenge the eight shall birth,

The trident daughter shall help lead the quest,

Her loyalty shall shine as she helps the rest,

The forge and the dove shall break the cage,

And death unleash through Hera's rage.'

On the last word, Rachel collapsed, but her helpers were waiting to catch her. They carried her away from the hearth and laid her down in the corner to rest.

"Is that normal?" Piper asked then she realized she had spoken into the silence, and everyone was looking at her. "I mean... does she spew green smoke a lot?"

"Gods, you're dense!" Drew sneered. "She just issued a prophecy - Jason's prophecy to save Hera! Why don't you just -" Drew squealed, and then suddenly she was soaking wet.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Drew just won the 'Annoy the Hades out of Azalea and see what happens!' competition!" Azalea shouted. More than half the people there laughed quietly.

"Azalea, stop it, and Drew," Annabeth snapped. "Piper asked a fair question. Something about that prophecy definitely is not normal. If breaking Hera's cage unleashes her rage and causes a bunch of deaths... why should we free her? It might be a trap, or - or maybe Hera will turn on her rescuers. She's never been kind or heroes."

Jason rose. "I don't have much choice. Hera took my memory. I need it back. Besides, we can't just not help the queen of the heavens if she is in trouble."

A girl from Hephaestus cabin stood up - Nyssa, the one with the red bandanna. "Maybe. But you should listen to Annabeth. Hera an be vengeful. She threw her own son - our dad - down a mountain just because he was ugly."

"Real ugly." snickered someone from Aphrodite.

"You know you just insulted your step-father, right?" Azalea retorted, and the Aphrodite kids looked nauseous. Piper was beginning to think that Azalea and herself could be great friends. Piper noticed Leo staring at Azalea.

"Thank you, Azalea." Nyssa said as calmly as she could. "Anyway, we've also got to think - why beware of the earth? And what's the giants' revenge? What are we dealing with here that is powerful enough to kidnap the queen of the heavens?"

No one answered, but Piper noticed Annabeth and Chiron having a silent exchange. Piper thought it went something like this:

Annabeth: The giants' revenge... no, it can't be.

Chiron: Don't speak of it here. Don't scare them.

Annabeth: You're kidding me! We can't be that unlucky.

Chiron: Later, child. If you told them everything, they would be too terrified to proceed.

Piper knew it was crazy to think she could read their expressions so well - two people she barely knew. But she was absolutely positive she understood them, and it scared the jujubes out of her.

Annabeth took a deep breath. "It's Jason's quest," She announced. "So it's Jason's choice. Obviously, he's the child of lightning. According to tradition, he may choose any two companions."

Someone from the Hermes cabin yelled, "Well, you, obviously, Annabeth. You've got the most experience."

"No, Travis," Annabeth said. "First off, I'm not helping Hera. Every time I've tried, she's deceived me, or it's come back to bite me later. Forget it. No way. Secondly, I'm leaving first thing in the morning to find Percy."

"It's connected," Piper blurted out, not sure how she got the courage. "You know that's true, don't you? This whole business, your boyfriend's disappearance - it's all connected."

"How?" demanded Drew. "If you're so smart, how?"

Piper tried to form an answer, but she couldn't.

"Lay off her, Drew." Azalea snarled. "Just because she has way more of a chance with Jason than you do, doesn't mean you have to be cruel to her because of it." Everyone stared in shock at Azalea.

"Well, it's true." Azalea continued. "And the fact that Drew can charm speak doesn't help anyone at all."

"Azalea, calm down," Annabeth said. "Despite the fact that everything you just said is true. You may be right, Piper. If this is connected, I'll find out from the other end - by searching for Percy. As I said, I am not about to rush off to rescue Hera, even if her disappearance sets the rest of the Olympians fighting again. But there is another reason I can't go. The prophecy says otherwise."

"It says who I pick," Jason agreed. "So Azalea is definitely coming -"

"Wait, what?" Azalea asked, shocked. "Why me?"

"The prophecy says so, 'The trident daughter shall help lead the quest, her loyalty shall shine as she helps the rest,'" Jason explained, but then he frowned. "But that would mean four people will come."

"Well, on one of my quests, four... um... guys, not including myself, went and we all returned, so it should be fine." Annabeth said.

"Okay then. 'The forge and the dove shall break the cage.' The forge is the symbol of Vul - Hephaestus."

Under the Cabin Nine banner, Nyssa's shoulders slumped, like she had just been given a heavy anvil to carry. "If you have to beware the earth," she said. "you should avoid travelling overland. You'll need air transport."

Piper was about to call out that Jason could fly. But then she though better of it. That was for Jason to tell them, and he wasn't volunteering the information. Maybe he figured he'd freaked them out enough for one night.

"The flying chariot is broken," Nyssa continued. "and the pegasi, we're using them to search for Percy. But maybe Hephaestus cabin can help figure out something else to help. With Jake incapacitated, I'm senior camper. I can volunteer for the quest."

She didn't sound enthusiastic.

Then Leo stood up. He'd been so quiet Piper had almost forgotten he was there, which was totally not like Leo.

"It's me," he said.

His cabinmates stirred. Several tried to pull him back into his seat, but he resisted.

"No, it's me. I know it is. I've got an idea for the transportation problem. Let me try. I can fix this!"

Jason studied him for a moment. Piper was sure he was going to tell Leo no. Then he smiled. "We started this together, Leo. Seems only right you come along. You find us a ride, you're in."

"Yes!" Leo pumped his fist.

"It'll be dangerous," Nyssa warned him. "Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back."

"Oh." Suddenly Leo didn't look so excited. Then he remembered everyone was watching. "I mean... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this!"

Annabeth nodded. "Then, Jason, you only need to choose the forth quest member. The dove -"

"Oh, absolutely!" Drew was on her feet and flashing Jason a smile. "The dove is Aphrodite. Everybody knows that. I'm totally yours!"

Pipers hands clenched. She stepped forward. "No."

Drew rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Dumpster girl. Back off."

"I had the vision of Hera; not you. I have to do this."

"Anyone can have a vision." Drew said.

"Yes, but only a few children of Aphrodite can charm speak." Azalea butted in.

"What do you mean, Water Girl?" Drew challenged Azalea.

"Well, I occasionally have visions of the past, present or future. I have seen Piper charm speak people into giving her stuff, and she has done it all her life. So now, we have two charm speaking Aphrodite campers here. You, Drew, and Piper." Azalea explained smugly.

Suddenly, there was a collective gasp. Everyone stated at Piper like she had exploded. She wondered what she had done wrong. Then she noticed there was a reddish glow around her.

"What?" she demanded.

She looked above her, but here was no burning symbol like the one that appeared above Leo. Then she looked down and yelped.

Her clothes... what in the world was she wearing? She despised dresses. She didn't own a dress. But now she was adorned in a beautiful white sleeveless gown that went down to her ankles, with a V-neck so low it was totally embarrassing. Delicate gold armbands circled her biceps. An intricate necklace of amber, coral and gold flowers glittered on her chest, and her hair...

"Oh, god," she said. "What's happened?"

A stunned Annabeth pointed at Piper's dagger, which was now oiled and gleaming, hanging at her side on a golden cord. Piper didn't want to draw it. She was afraid of what she would see, but her curiosity won out. She unsheathed Katoptrist and stared at her reflection in the polished metal blade. Her hair was perfect: lush and long and chocolate brown, braided with gold ribbons down one side so it fell across her shoulder. She wore makeup, better than Piper would even know how to do herself - subtle touches that made her lips cherry red and brought out all the different colours in her eyes.

She was... She was...

"Beautiful," Jason exclaimed. "Piper, you... you're a knockout."

Under different circumstances, that would have been the happiest moment of her life. But now everyone was staring at her like she was a freak. Except Azalea, who was smiling like it was some of the best news ever. Drew's face was full of horror and revulsion. "No!" she cried. "Not possible!"

"This isn't me," Piper protested. "I - don't understand."

Chiron the centaur folded his front legs and bowed to her, and all the campers followed his example.

"Hail, Piper McLean," Chiron announced gravely, as if he were speaking at her funeral. "Daughter of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love."


	7. Chapter 7: Leo

Ok, so let's start with a note to the guest users 'me' and 'NOTAH8R JUST MAD' shall we? So then, 'me', well of corse I have changed stuff in every chapter otherwise I could be banned from FanFic because of the copyright law, Duh-Brain. Also, if I was putting Azalea in instead of Annabeth, the prophecy would not have changed, it would still be the prophecy of 7. Azalea would be a daughter of Athena instead of Poseidon. She would also have been Percy's girlfriend. Please use your brain. And 'NOTAH8R JUST MAD' you are mad if you think you can go around putting people down and saying that they are not good writers, the same thing goes for 'me' and obviously you are not good writer either if you say that kind of stuff because you are just trying to make yourself feel all high and mighty. Please use your brain if you try to make me feel bad about my writing, because what you did yesterday really didn't work.

Ah, that funny moment when somebody tries to put you down and completely fails.

Love from, Azalea Blue, Xoxoxo

* * *

Leo didn't stick around after Piper turned beautiful. Sure, it was amazing and all - She's got makeup! It's a miracle! - but Leo had other problems to deal with. He ducked out of the amphitheatre and ran into the darkness, wondering what he had got himself into.

He'd stood up in front of a bunch of stronger, braver demigods and volunteered - volunteered - for a mission that would probably get him killed.

He hadn't mentioned Tía Callida, his old babysitter, but as soon as he heard about Jason's vision - the lady in the black dress and shawl - Leo knew it was the same woman. Tía Callida was Hera. His evil babysitter was the queen of the gods. Stuff like that could really deep-fry your brain.

He trudged towards the woods and tried not to think about his childhood - all the messed up things that had led to his mother's death, an event that Azalea saw in a vision. But he couldn't help it.

The first time Tía Callida tried to kill him, he must've been about two. Tía Callida was looking after him while his mother was at the machine shop. She wasn't really his aunt, of course - just one of the old women in the community, a generic tía who helped watch the kids. She smelled like a honey-baked ham, and always wore a widows dress with a black shawl.

"Let's set you down for a nap," she said. "Let's see if you are my brave little hero, eh?"

Leo was sleepy. She nestled him into his blankets in a warm mound of red and yellow - pillows? The bed was like a cubby hole in the wall, made of blackened bricks, with a metal slot over his head and a square hole far above, where he could see the stars. He remembered resting comfortably, grabbing at sparks like fireflies. He dozed, and dreamed about a boat made of fire, sailing through the cinders. He imagined himself on board, navigating the sky. Somewhere nearby, Tía Callida sat in her rocking chair - creak, creak, creak - and sang a lullaby. Even at two, Leo knew the difference between English and Spainish, and he remembered being puzzled because Tía Callida was singing in a different language to either.

Everything was fine until his mother came home. She screamed and raced over to snatch him up, yelling at Tía Callida, "How could you?" But the old lady had disappeared.

Leo remembered looking over his mothers shoulder at the flames curling around his blankets. Only years later had he realized he had been sleeping in the inferno of a fireplace.

The weirdest thing? Tía Callida hadn't been arrested or even banished from their house. She appeared again several times over the next few years. Once, when Leo was three, she let him play with knives. "You must learn your blades early," she insisted. "if you are to be my hero someday." Leo managed not to kill himself, but he got the feeling Tía Callida wouldn't have cared one way or the other.

When Leo was four, Tía found a rattlesnake for him in a nearby cow pasture. She gave him a stick and encouraged him to poke the animal. "Where is you bravery, little hero? Show me the Fates were right to choose you." Leo stared down at those amber eyes, hearing the dry shh-shh-shh of the snake's rattle. He couldn't bring himself to poke the snake. It didn't seem fair. Apparently the snake felt the same way about biting a little kid. Leo could've sworn it looked at Tía Callida like, Are you nuts, lady? Then it disappeared into the tall grass.

The last time she babysat him, Leo was five. She brought him a pack of crayons and a pad of paper. They sat together at the picnic table in the back of the apartment complex, under an old pecan tree. While Tía Callida sang her strange songs, Leo drew a picture of the boat he'd seen in the flames, with colourful sails and rows of oars, a curved stern and an awesome masthead. When he was done, about to sign his name the way he'd learned in kindergarten, a wind snatched the picture away. It flew into the sky and disappeared.

Leo wanted to cry. He'd spent so much time on that picture - but Tía Callida just clucked with disappointment.

"It isn't time yet, little hero. Someday, you'll have your quest. You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense. But first you will face many sorrows. I regret that, but heroes cannot be shaped any other way. Now, make me a fire, eh? Warm these old bones."

A few minutes later, Leo's mom came out and shrieked with horror. Tía Callida was gone, but Leo sat in the middle of a smoking fire. The pad of paper was reduced to ashes. Crayons had melted into a bubbling puddle of multicoloured goo, and Leo's hands were ablaze, slowly burning into the picnic table. For years afterwards, people in the apartment complex would wonder how someone had seared the impressions of a five-year-old's hands and inch deep into solid wood.

Now Leo was sure that Tía Callida, his psychotic babysitter, had been Hera all along. That made her, what - his godly grandmother? His family was even more messed up than he realized.

He wondered if his mother had known the truth. Leo remembered after that last visit, his mom took him inside and had a long talk with him, but he only understood some of it.

"She can't come back again." His mom had a beautiful face with kind eyes, and curly dark hair, but he looked older than she was because of hard work. The lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her hands were calloused. She was the first person from their family to graduate from college. She had a degree in mechanical engineering and could design anything, fix anything, build anything.

No one would hire her. No company would take her seriously, so she ended up in the machine shop, trying to make enough money to support the two of them. She always smelled of machine oil, and when she talked she switched from Spanish to English constantly - using them like complementary tools. It took Leo years to realize that not everyone spoke that way. She'd even taught him morse code, as a type of game, so they could tap messages to each other when they were in different rooms: I love you. You okay? Simple things like that.

"I don't care what Callida says," his mother told him. "I don't care about destiny and the Fates. You're too young for that. You're still my baby."

She took his hands, looking for burn marks, but of course there weren't any. "Leo, listen to me. Fire is a tool, like anything else. But it is more dangerous than most. You don't know your limits. Please, promise me - no more fire until you meet your father. Some day, mijo, you will meet him. He'll explain everything."

Leo had heard that since he could remember. Some day he would meet his dad. His mom wouldn't answer any questions about him. Leo had never met him, never even seen pictures, but she talked like he'd just gone to the store for some milk and he'd be back any minute. Leo tried to believe her. Some day, everything would make sense.

For the next couple of years, they were happy. Leo almost forgot about Tía Callida. He still dreamed of the flying boat, but the other strange events seemed like a dream, too.

It all came apart when he was eight. By then, he was spending very free hour at the shop with him mom. He knew how to do machines. He could measure and do Mathis better than most adults. He'd learned to think three-dimensionally, solving mechanical problems in his head the way his mom did.

One night, they stayed late because hi mom was finishing a drill-bit design she hoped to patent. If she could sell the prototype, it might change their lives. She'd finally get a break.

As she worked, Leo passed her supplies and told her corny jokes, trying to keep her spirits up. He loved it when he could make her laugh. She'd smile and say, "Your father would be proud of you, mijo. You'll meet him soon, I'm sure."

Mom's workspace was at the very back of the shop. It was kind of creepy at night, because they were the only ones there. Every sound echoed through the dark warehouse, but Leo didn't mind as long as he was with his mom. If he did wander the shop, they could always keep in touch with Morse code taps. Whenever they were ready to leave, they had to walk through the entire shop, through the break room and out to the parking lot, locking the doors behind them.

That night after finishing up, they'd just got to the break room when his mom realized she didn't have her keys.

"That's funny." She frowned. "I know I had them. Wait here, mijo. I'll only be a minute."

She gave him one more smile - the last one he'd ever get - and she went back into the warehouse.

She'd only been gone for a few heart beats when the interior door slammed shut. Then the exterior door locked itself.

"Mom?" Leo's heart pounded. Something heavy crashed inside the warehouse. He ran to the door, but no matter how hard he pulled or kicked, it wouldn't open. "Mom!" Frantically, he tapped a message on the wall: You okay?

"She can't hear you." A voice said.

Leo turned and found himself facing a strange woman. At first he thought it was Tía Callida. She was wrapped in black robes, with a veil covering her face.

"Tía?" Leo asked.

The woman chuckled, a slow gentle sound, as if she were half asleep. "I am not your guardian. Merely a family resemblance."

"What - what do you want? Where's my mom?"

"Ah... loyal to your mother. How nice. But, you see, I have children, too... and I understand you will fight them some day. When they try to wake me, you will prevent them. I cannot allow that."

"I don't know you. I don't want to fight anybody."

She muttered like a sleepwalker in a trance, "A wise choice."

With a chill, Leo realized the woman was, in fact, asleep. Behind her veil, her eyes were closed. But even stranger: her clothes were not made of cloth. They were made of earth - dry black dirt, churning and shifting around her. Her pale, sleeping face barely visible behind a curtain of dust, and he had the horrible sense that she had just risen from a grave. If the woman was asleep, Leo wanted her to stay that way. He knew that fully awake she would be even more terrible.

"I cannot destroy you yet," the woman murmured. "The Fates will not allow it. But they do not protect your mother, and they cannot stop me from breaking your spirit. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me."

"Leave my mother alone!" Fear rose in his throat as the woman shuffled forward. She moved more like an avalanche than a person, a dark wall of earth shifting towards him.

"How will you stop me?" she whispered.

She walked straight through a table, the particles of her body reassembling on the other side.

She loomed over Leo, and he knew she would pass right through him, too. He was the only thing between her and his mother.

His hands caught fire.

A sleepy smile spread across the woman's face, as if she'd already won. Leo screamed with desperation. His vision turned red. Flames washed over the earthen woman, the walls, the locked doors. And Leo lost consciousness.

When he woke, he was in an ambulance.

The paramedic tried to be kind. She told him the warehouse burned down. His mother hadn't made it out. The paramedic said she was sorry, but Leo felt hollow. He'd lost control, just like his mother had warned. Her death was his fault.

Soon the policemen came to get him, and they weren't as nice. The fire had started in the break room. He'd survived by some miracle, but what kind of child locked the doors of his mother's workplace, knowing she was inside, and started a fire.

Later, his neighbours at the apartment complex told the police what a strange boy he was. They talked about the burnt handprints on the picnic table. They'd always known something was wrong with Esperanza Valdez's son.

His relatives wouldn't take him in. His Aunt Rosa called him a diablo and shouted at the social workers to take him away. So Leo went to his first foster home. A few days later, he ran away. Some foster homes lasted longer than others. He would joke around, make a few friends , pretend that nothing bothered him, but he always ended up running sooner or later. It was the only thing that made the pain feel better - feeling like he was moving, getting further and further away from the ashes of the machine shop.

He'd promised himself he would never play with fire again. He hadn't thought about Tía Callida, or the sleeping woman wrapped in earthen robes, for a long time.

He was almost to the woods when he imagined Tía Callida's voice: It wasn't your fault, little hero. Our enemy wakes. It's time to stop running.

"Hera," Leo muttered. "you're not even here, are you? You're in a cage somewhere."

There was no answer.

But now, at least, Leo understood something. Hera had been watching him his entire life. Somehow, she'd know that one day she would need him. Maybe those Fates she mentioned could tell the future. Leo wasn't sure. But he knew he was meant to go on this quest, and Leo knew it had something to do with that sleeping woman in the shop, wrapped in robes of shifting dirt.

You'll find your destiny, Tía Callida had promised. Your hard journey will finally make sense.

Leo might find out what that flying boat in his dreams meant. He might meet his father, or even get to avenge his mother's death.

But first things first. He'd promised Jason a flying ride.

Not the boat from his dreams - not yet. There wasn't time to build something that complicated. He needed a quicker solution. He needed a dragon.

He hesitated at the edge of the woods, peering into absolute darkness. Owls hooted, and something far away hissed like a chorus of snakes. He could've sworn a human sized figure had just leaped into the branches near his head.

Leo remembered what Azalea had told him: no one should go in the woods alone, definitely not unarmed. Leo had nothing - no sword, no flashlight, no help.

He glanced back at the lights of the cabins. He could turn around now and tell everyone he'd been joking. Psych! Nyssa could go on the quest instead. He could stay at camp and learn how to be a part of the Hephastus cabin, but he wondered what people would think of him backing out, and how long it would be before he looked like his bunkmates - sad, dejected, convinced of his own bad luck.

They cannot stop me from breaking your spirit, the sleeping woman had said. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me.

"Believe me, lady," Leo murmured, "I remember. And whoever you are, I'm gonna face-plant you hard, Leo-style."

He took a deep breath and plunged into the forest.


	8. Chapter 8: Leo

The woods weren't like any place he'd been before. Leo had been raised in a north Houston apartment complex. The wildest things he'd ever seen were that rattlesnake in the cow pasture and his Aunt Rosa in her nightgown, until he was sent to Wilderness School.

Even there, the school had been in the desert. No trees with gnarled roots to trip over. No streams to fall into. No branches casting dark, creepy shadows and owls looking down at him with their big reflective eyes. He was in the Twilight Zone.

He stumbled along until he was sure no one back at the cabins could possibly see him. Then he summoned fire. Flames danced across his fingertips, casting enough light to see. He hadn't tried to keep a sustained burn going since he was five, at that picnic table. Since his mom's death, he'd been to afraid to try anything. Even this tiny fire made him feel guilty.

He kept walking, looking for any dragon-type clues - giant footprints, trampled trees, swathes of burning forest. Something that big couldn't exactly sneak around, right? But he saw nada. Once he glimpsed a large, furry shape like a wolf or a bear, but it stayed away from his fire, which was fine by Leo.

Something crashed behind Leo, and he froze, he turned around, but nothing was there. He turned back around.

"Boo." a girl said, giveing Leo one of the biggest shocks ever. The girl was hanging upside down, swinging by her legs, her hands behind her head. The Leo realized it was Azalea.

"What are you doing here?" Leo asked.

"Helping you find the dragon, reparación niño." Azalea replied.

"You know you just called me repair boy in Spanish, right, agua niña?" Leo said.

"And you just called me Water girl in Spanish." Azalea said.

"Touché." Leo said. Azalea rolled her eyes, smiling, then swung back up onto the branch then jumped down silently about a metre away for Leo.

They walked for a few minutes, then, at the bottom of a clearing, they saw the first trap - a hundred-foot-wide crater ringed with boulders.

Leo had to admit it was pretty ingenious. In the centre of depression, a metal vat the size of a hot tub had been filled with bubbly dark liquid - Tabasco sauce and motor oil. On a pedestal suspended over the vat, an electric fan rotated in a circle, spreading the fumes across the forest. Could metal dragons smell?

The vat seemed to be unguarded. But Leo looked closely, and in the dim light of the stars and his hand held fire he could see the glint of metal beneath the earth and leaves - a bronze net lining the entire crater. Or maybe see wasn't the right word - he could sense it there, as if the mechanism was emitting heat, revealing itself to him. Six large strips of bronze stretched out from the vat like the spokes of a wheel. They would be pressure sensitive, Leo guessed. As soon as the dragon stepped on one, the net would spring closed and voilà - one gift-wrapped monster.

Leo edged closer. Azalea leaped onto the nearest trigger strip. As expected, nothing happened. They had to have set the net for something really heavy. Otherwise the net could catch an animal, human, smaller monster, whatever. He doubted there was anything heavier than a metal dragon in these woods. At least, he hoped there wasn't.

Azalea picked her way down the crater and approached the vat, Leo a few metres behind. The fumes were almost overpower, and his eyes started watering. Leo remembered a time when Tía Callida (Hera, whatever) had made him chop jalapeños in the kitchen and he'd got the juice in his eyes. Serious pain. But of course she'd been like, "Endure it, little hero. The Aztecs of your mothers homeland used to punish bad children by holding them over a fire filled with chili peppers. They raised many heroes that way."

A total phycho, that lady. Leo was so glad he was on a quest to rescue her.

Tía Callida would've loved this vat, because it was way worse than jalapeño juice. Leo and Azalea looked for a trigger - something that would disable the net. They didn't see anything.

Leo had a moment of panic. Nyssa had said there were several traps like this in the woods, and they were planning more. What if the dragon had already stepped into one? How could he and Azalea possibly find them all?

Leo continued to search, but he didn't see any release mechanism. No large button labelled OFF. It occurred to him that there might not be one. He started to despair - and then he heard the sound.

It was more of a tremor - the deep sort of rumbling you hear in your gut rather than your ears. It gave him the jitters, but he didn't look around for the source. Azalea was backing to the edge of the crater. Leo just kept examining the trap, thinking, Must be a long way off. It's pounding it's way through the woods. I gotta hurry.

Then he heard a grinding snort, like steam forced out of a metal barrel.

His neck tingled. He turned slowly. At the opposite edge of the pit from Azalea, fifty feet away, two glowing red eyes were staring at him. The creature gleamed in the moonlight, and Leo couldn't believe something that huge had sneaked up on him so fast. Too late, he realized it's gaze was fixed on the fire in his hand, and he extinguished the flames.

He could see the dragon just fine. It was about sixty feet long, snout to tail, it's body made of interlocking bronze plates. It's claws we're the size of butcher knives, and its mouth was lined with hundreds of dagger-sharp metal teeth. Steam came out of its nostrils. It snarled like a chainsaw cutting through a tree. It would've bitten Leo or Azalea in half, easy, or stomped them flat. I was the most beautiful thing Leo had ever seen, except for one problem that completely ruined his plan.

"You don't have wings." Leo said.

The dragon's snarl died. It tilted its head as if to say, Why aren't you running away in terror?

"Hey, no offence," Leo said. "You're amazing! Good god, who made you? Are you hydraulic or nuclear-powered or what? But if it was me I would've put wings on you. What kind of dragon doesn't have wings? I guess maybe you're too heavy to fly? I should've thought of that."

"You ask too many questions." Azalea said from behind Leo.

The dragon snorted, more confused now. It was supposed to trample Leo and Azalea. This conversation thing wasn't part of the plan. It took a step forward, and Leo and Azalea shouted, "No!"

The dragon snarled again.

"It's a trap, bronze brain," Leo said. "They're trying to catch you."

The dragon opened its and blew fire. A column of white-hot flames blew over Azalea and Leo, more than Leo had ever tried to endure before. He felt as if he were being hosed down with a powerful, very hot fire hose. It stung a little, but he stood his ground. When the flames died, he was perfectly fine. Even his clothes were okay, which Leo didn't understand, but for which he was grateful. He liked his army jacket, and having his pants seared off would've been pretty embarrassing.

"What is the name of Hades was that for?" Azalea yelled at the dragon. "If you ever do that again, I swear to my father that you will have water in your circuits for the rest of your robotic life!" Then she started mumbling something about if she wasn't heat resistant and didn't have that water shield she would be burnt to a crisp.

The dragon stared at Leo and Azalea. Its face didn't change, being made of metal and all, but Leo thought he could read its expression: Why no crispy critter? A spark flew out of its neck like it was about to short-circuit.

"You can't burn me," Leo said, trying to sound stern and calm. He'd never had a dog before, but he talked to the dragon the way he thought you'd talk to a dog. "Stay, boy. Don't come any closer. I don't want you to get caught. See, they think you're broken and have to be scrapped. But I don't believe that. I can fix you if you'll let me -"

The dragon creaked, roared and charged. The trap sprang. The floor of the crater erupted with a sound like a thousand trash can lids banging together. Earth and leaves flew, metal net flashing. Leo was knocked off his feet, turned upside down and doused in Tabasco sauce and oil. He found himself sandwiched between the vat and the dragon as it thrashed, trying to free itself from the net that had wrapped around them all.

"Azalea?" Leo called.

"Up on the dragons back." She called back, but her voice sounded slightly pained. Leo looked up, and saw that she had enveloped herself in water. But that didn't hind the ugly gash on her arm.

"What happened?" Leo shouted to her.

"I was standing on one of the trigger strips, and when it launched me into the air... well, one of the dragons claws did that to my arm. I'm fine."

The dragon blew flames in every direction, lighting up the sky and setting trees on fire. Oil and sauce burned all over them. It didn't hurt Leo, but it left a nasty taste in his mouth.

"Will you stop that!" he yelled.

The dragon kept squirming. Leo realized he would get crushed if he didn't move. It wasn't easy, but he managed to wriggle out from between the dragon and the vat. He squirmed through the net. Fortunately, the holes were plenty big enough for a skinny kid.

He ran to the dragon's head. It tried to snap at him, but it's teeth we're tangled in the mesh. It blew fire again, but seemed to be running out of energy. The flames were only orange. They sputtered before they even reached Leo's face.

"Listen, man," Leo said, "You're just going to show them where you are. Then they'll come and break out acid and the metal cutters. Is that what you want?"

The dragon's jaw made a creaking sound, like it was trying to talk.

"Okay, then," Leo said. "You'll have to trust me."

And Leo set to work.

It took him almost an hour to find the control panel. It was right behind the dragon's head, which made sense. He'd elected to keep the dragon in the net, because it was easier to work with the dragon constrained, but the dragon didn't like it.

"Hold still!" Leo scolded.

The dragon made another creaking sound that might've been a whimper.

Leo examined the wires inside the dragon's head. He was distracted by a sound in the woods, but when he looked up, it was just a tree spirit - a dryad, Leo thought they were called - putting out the flames in her branches. Fortunately, the dragon hadn't started an all-out forest fire, but still the dryad wasn't too pleased. The girl's dress was smoking. She smothered the flames with a silky blanket, and when she saw Leo looking at her, she made a gesture that was probably very rude in dryad, earning Azalea's laugh of approval. Then the dryad disappeared in a green poof of mist.

Leo returned his attention to the wiring. It was ingenious, definitely, and it made sense to him. This was the motor control relay. This processed sensory input from the eyes. This disk...

"Ha," he said. "Well, no wonder."

Creak? The dragon asked with its jaw.

"You've got a corroded control disk. Probably regulates your higher reasoning circuits, right? Rusty brain, man. No wonder you're a little... confused." He almost said crazy, but he caught himself. "I wish I had a replacement disc, but... this is a complicated piece of circuitry. I'm gonna have to take it out and clean it. Only be a minute."

"A lot of what you just said didn't make any sense." Azalea said.

"Be quiet and sort out your cut." Leo said, and Azalea made a face. Leo pulled out the disk, and the dragon went absolutely still. The glow in its eyes died. Leo slid off its back and began polishing the disk. He mopped up some oil and Tabasco sauce with his sleeve, which helped cut through the grime, but the more he cleaned, the more concerned he got. Some of the circuits were beyond repair. He could make it better, but not perfect. For that, he'd need a completely new disk, and he had no idea how to build one.

He tried to work quickly. He wasn't sure how long the dragon's control disk could be off without damaging it - maybe forever - but he didn't want to take chances. Once he'd done the best he could do, he climbed back up to the dragon's head and started cleaning the wiring and gearboxes, getting himself filthy in the process.

"Clean hands, dirty equipment." he muttered, something his mother used to say. By the time he was through, his hands were black with grease and his clothes looked like he'd just lost a mud-wrestling contest, but the mechanisms looked a lot better. He slipped in the disk, connected the last wire and sparks flew. The dragon shuddered. Its eyes began to glow.

"I'm getting off now." Azalea said, sliding down the side of the dragons back.

"Better?" Leo asked the dragon.

The dragon made a sound like a high-speed drill. It opened its mouth and all its teeth rotated.

"I guess that's a yes. Hold on, I'll free you."

Another thirty minutes to find the release clamps for the net and untangle the dragon, but finally it stood and shook the last bit of netting off its back. It roared triumphantly and shot fire at the sky.

"Seriously," Leo said. "Could you please not show off?"

Creak? The dragon asked.

"You need a name," Leo decided. "I'm calling you Festus."

The dragon whirred it's teeth and grinned. At least Leo hoped it was a grin.

"Cool," Leo said. "But we still have a problem, because you don't have wings."

Festus tilted hi head and snorted steam. Then he lowered his back in an unmistakable gesture. He wanted Leo to climb on.

Leo climbed onto the dragon's back, and Festus snorted again and nodded towards Azalea.

"Me too?" Azalea said, sounding shocked. Festus nodded. Azalea smiled and climbed on.

"Where are we going?" Leo asked, but he was too excited to wait for an answer, and Festus bounded off into the woods.

Leo lost track of time and all sense of direction. It seemed impossible the woods could be so deep and wild, but the dragon travelled until the trees were like skyscrapers and the canopy of leaves completely blotted out the stars. Even the fire in Leo's hand couldn't have lit the way, but the dragon's glowing red eyes acted like headlights.

Finally they crossed a stream and came to a dead end, a limestone cliff a hundred feet tall - a solid, sheer mass the dragon couldn't possibly climb.

Festus stopped at the base and lifted one leg like a dog pointing.

"What is it?" Leo slid to the ground. He walked up to the cliff - nothing but solid rock. The dragon kept pointing.

"It's not going to move out of your way," Leo told him.

The loose wire in the dragon's neck sparked, but otherwise he stayed still. Leo put his hand on the cliff. Suddenly his fingers smouldered. Lines of fire spread from his fingertips like ignited gunpowder, sizzling across the limestone.

"Leo, what did you do?" Azalea asked. The burning lines raced across the cliff face until they had outlined a glowing red door five times as tall as Leo. He backed up and the door swung open, disturbingly silently for such a big slab of rock.

"Perfectly balanced," He muttered. "That's some first-rate engineering."

The dragon unfroze and marched inside, as if he were coming home, Azalea still on his back, and for some reason, a large blob of water following her.

Leo stepped through, and the door began to close. He had a moment of panic, remembering that night in the machine shop long ago, when he'd been locked in. What if he got stuck in here? But then lights flickered on - a combination of electric fluorescents and wall-mounted torches. When Leo saw the cavern, he forgot about leaving.

"Festus," he muttered. "What is this place? And why do you look so scared, Azalea?"

"Oh, no reason at all!" She replied, a smile on her face, sliding off of Festus's back.

The dragon stomped to the centre of the room, leaving tracks in the thick dust, and curled up on a large circular platform.

The cave was the size of an aeroplane hanger, with endless work tables and storage cages, rows of garage-sized doors along either wall, and staircases that led up to a network of catwalks high above. Equipment was everywhere - hydraulic lifts, welding torches, hazard suits, air-spades, forklifts, plus something that looked suspiciously like a nuclear reaction chamber. Bulletin boards were covered with tattered, faded blueprints. And weapons, armour, shields - war supplies all over the place, a lot of them only partially finished.

Hanging from chains far above the dragon's platform was an old tattered banner almost too faded to read. The letters were Greek, but Leo somehow knew what they said: BUNKER 9.

Did that mean nine as in the Hephaestus cabin, or nine as in there were eight others? Leo looked at Festus, still curled up on the platform, and it occurred to him that the dragon looked so content because it was home. He had probably been built on that pad.

"Do the other kids know...?" Leo's question died as he asked it. Clearly, this place had been abandoned for decades. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. The floor revealed no foot prints except for his, Azalea's and the huge paw prints of the dragon. They were the first ones in this bunker since... since a long time ago. Bunker 9 had been abandoned with a lot of projects half finished on the tables. Locked up and forgotten, but why?

Leo looked at a map on the wall - a battle map of camp, but the paper was as cracked and yellow as onionskin. A date on the bottom read, 1864.

"No way," he muttered.

Then he spotted Azalea looking at a blueprint on a nearby bulletin board, and his heart nearly leaped out of his throat. He ran to the workable and stared at a white-line drawing almost faded beyond recognition: a Greek ship from several different angles. Faintly scrawled words underneath it read: PROPHECY? UNCLEAR. FLIGHT?

It was the ship he'd seen in his dream - the flying ship. Someone had tried to build it here, or at least sketched out the idea. Then it was left, forgotten... a prophecy yet to come. And, weirdest of all, the ship's masthead was exactly like the one Leo had drawn when he was five - the head of a dragon.

"Leo, you look like you've seen a ghost... which could very well be possible." Azalea said.

"Oh, it's nothing. The masthead, though... it looks just like you, Festus," Leo murmured. "That's creepy."

The masthead gave him an uneasy feeling, but Leo's mind was spun with too many other questions to think about it for long. He touched the blueprint, hoping he could take it down to study, but the paper crackled at his touch, so he left it alone. He looked around for any other clues. No boats. No pieces that looked like parts of this project, but there were so many doors and storerooms to explore.

Festus snorted like he was trying to get Leo and Azalea's attention, reminding Leo that he had to get to work on Festus. It was true. Leo figured it would be morning in a few hours, and he'd go completely sidetracked. He'd saved the dragon, but that wasn't going to help him on the quest. He needed something that would fly.

Festus nudged something towards him - a leather tool belt that had been left next to his construction pad. Then the dragon switched on his glowing red eye beams and turned them towards the ceiling. Leo and Azalea looked up to where the spotlights were pointing, and Azalea gasped. Leo yelped when he recognised the shapes hanging above them in the darkness.

"Festus," He said in a small voice. "We've got work to do."

* * *

Shimmering DaisyFace and I both declare today I Love Leo Valdez Day!


	9. Chapter 9: Azalea

Hey, I have decided that you guys can vote for the shippings. The official ones are: PercyxAnnabeth

The ones you can vote for are:

JasonxPiper

JasonxReyna

LeoxAzalea

LeoxHazel

FrankxHazel

The poll will be on my profile.

Please try to vote before Sunday 18th November 2012

* * *

Azalea wasn't being entirely helpful.

Sure, she was randomly helping Leo with stuff like positioning Festus's wings, or solving a random maths sum, but over all she wasn't really helping.

"You really aren't the most helpful, are you?" Leo said to her.

"Well, I'm more helpful in other situations," Azalea said. "But this is a mechanical problem, and you're the child of Hephaestus, not me."

"That wasn't the best of comebacks." Leo said to Azalea.

Leo walked around the desks, looking for a piece of equipment. Then he said, "Why on earth is there a needle in here?"

Azalea cringed away from the table he was at, and closed her eyes when Leo picked up the needle. She tried to steady her breaths, but she couldn't help but hyperventilating.

"Please don't tell me you are scared of needles." Leo said to her teasingly. Azalea glared at him, and looked around the tables for nothing in particular.

"Why would I be afraid of needles, repair boy?" Azalea said through clenched teeth. Then she picked up a thin metal device, and something like headphone cables were fitted into a small hole at the bottom. "What is this? It looks like an ancient MP3."

Azalea dusted it off, and found that it was, in fact, an MP3 player. Silver headphones included.

"It would've been cooler if the headphones and MP3 were turquoise." Azalea said, sighing, and yelped when the silver turned into turquoise. Gingerly, she put the headphones on, and turned the MP3 on. A voice came through the headphones, saying, "User: Detected. Azalea Blue, daughter of Poseidon. Mood: detected: bored, excited for quest. Favourite songs: detected. Playlist: now in progress."

Azalea tore off the headphones, slammed them and the MP3 on the table top, and stumbled back, and in the process, falling over. A loud crash was heard by Festus and Leo, who had no idea what had happened until Azalea stood up, and shouted, "That thing is not normal!"

Leo took the chance to freak Azalea out by waving the needle in front of her face, which made Azalea let out a strangled scream.

"So you do have a phobia of needles." Leo said gleefully. "And possibly the dark, as well?"

"If you dare tell anyone, at all, about those fears I will personally make sure you death is drowning." Azalea snarled at Leo, eyes narrowed.

Leo put his hands up in mock surrender, and went back to work. Azalea put the headphones back on, and turned on the MP3. Again, it said, "User: detected. Azalea Blue, daughter of Poseidon. Mood: detected: annoyed, bored, excited for quest. Favourite songs: detected. Playlist: now in progress."

This time, Azalea didn't act like she detested MP3s and headphones. Instead, she sat down and closed her eyes, listening to the music. The music that was playing matched her mood perfectly. She felt more and more rejuvenated as the minutes slipped by. It reminded her of her mother, how her mother was a surfer and a DJ, and Azalea basically grew up by the sea, listening to music. She felt like she could actually do something with the water that was following her around.

Azalea placed the hand of her wounded arm into the blob of water, and watched as small streams of water travelled up her arm and cleaned the cut, then healed it. She was still marvelling at how she could do such amazing things, such as healing wounds with water. It was as if the music had lifted her spirits, bringing back her energy. It was strange though. As much as she loved to sing and dance, she would never perform unless with someone else. Only because of the only other get she knew of. Stage fright. She wondered if Drew had MePhobia, the phobia of being scared that you will become so amazing nobody on the planet could handle it and they would died from their amazingness.

To her watery power, she was still a newbie, and the whole thing with the dragon and the trap had really made her tired. Suddenly, a water-bed didn't seem like a bad idea.

"Leo, the MP3 is officially mine," Azalea told him, stifling a yawn. "Goodnight. Wake me if something interesting happens."

Azalea formed the water into a bed, sat on it, and rised it a few feet out of reach of herself, knowing fully well that she was only going to get out of bed when she had to go back to the camp. She dropped the MP3 onto the table, go comfortable and drifted off to sleep.

Azalea dreamed of a vast space of water. She guessed she was far below the ocean surface, although she was not sure where exactly she was. The water comforted her, but that didn't change the fact that she was still terrified of the dark.

She saw a dark figure coming towards her, and immediately she was on guard. As the figure came closer, she saw that it was a man. He had black hair, a neatly trimmed beard, sea-green eyes, and a nice tan, as well as 'smile crinkles' around his eyes and cheeks. He was wearing Birkenstocks, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a shirt with coconuts and parrots on it, and a battered cap decorated with fishing lures.

"Who are you?" Azalea demanded.

"Oh, Azalea dear, that is no way to talk to you father." the man said to her kindly. Azalea realized that the man was her father, Poseidon.

"Sorry, lord Poseidon." Azalea said, looking down in shame.

"Azalea, look at me," Poseidon said to her, and she obeyed, looking him in the eyes. He smiled. "You can call me father. Well haven't you grown since the last time I saw you. You look so much like your mother, yet you have a completely different personality, determination, and courage... and just look at that ring around the iris' of your eyes."

Azalea wasn't usually concerned about how she looked, but now, with her father studying her every movement, she was more concerned than ever.

"Anyway, we don't have much time," Poseidon warned. "Hephaestus has done something so that the gods can contact their children through dreams, since Zeus stopped the allowance of it, but not for long. I saw that you are going on your first quest tomorrow, am I right?"

"Yes... father. I am. Apparently to save Hera." Azalea said to him.

"I am still surprised that Zeus does care for her... Ok, well, you know to be wary of earth and sky, although with a son of Zeus and two other powerful demigods, you should be fine flying," Poseidon said. "But, you will face many challenges on the way, and the grand finale will not be an entire pleasantry, please remember."

"Yes, I will." Azalea said, almost robotic.

"Azalea, you are still my daughter, and I care about you. I may have not been there for you all your life, but I still love you. I am not your master, so don't speak to me like a robot," Poseidon said, slightly sad. "And please, do not do anything rash or not thought through. Please be careful."

Azalea nodded, feeling sad on the inside, her insides trembling.

"Azalea, time is running out, and there is one more thing," Poseidon said, and he took Azalea's left arm, and on the inside of her arm and just above her wrist, Poseidon waved his hand over a spot, and the image of a trident appeared, and stayed on Azalea's skin. "Remember who you are, that you are you, and don't let anything change that.

"Father, I have a question." Azalea ventured. "Do... Do you know where Percy is?"

"That is one thing that has been troubling me for the last few days now. I regret having to say that I do not. Keep an eye out for him. Goodbye for now."

Poseidon's face was sad, and he turned and began drifting away.

"Dad, wait!" Azalea shouted. Poseidon turned to face her, smiling sadly. "I - I'm sorry if I do not live up to your expectations."

"But, Azalea, you already have exceeded them." and without another word, Poseidon turned and left.

Azalea woke with a sorrow that she didn't get more time to spend with her father. And bits of scrap metal hitting her back.

"Azalea, get up already! We need to go now!" Leo was shouting to her. Azalea groaned and dropped through the water to the ground, and landed gently on the floor on her feet.

"By the way, you hum songs when you sleep," Leo told her, and Azalea blushed slightly. "And when you blush, there is blue as well as red."

"Well, hasn't someone been taking notice of me," Azalea said. "And was staring at me during campfire."

"You - You noticed that?" Leo stuttered, blushing furiously.

"I'm observant. So basically, yeah, I noticed. And so did Piper, by the way." Azalea said to Leo.

Azalea checked her wrist for the trident, but it wasn't there, which confused her.

She quickly shoved the MP3 into her jean pocket, and hung the headphones around her neck. She gasped at the sight of Festus, and again at how filthy Leo was.

"You really need to go and clean yourself." Azalea told Leo as she climbed onto Festus's back a few notches behind Leo. The doors opened, and Festus walked through, and flew above the trees.


	10. Chapter 10: Piper

"Leo?" Piper yelled, surprised from when the dragon swooped down on the camp. Then, even more surprised, Piper yelled, "Azalea?"

Sure enough, there they were, sitting atop a giant bronze death machine and grinning like a lunatic. Well, Azalea was a fair bit more calm than Leo. Even before they landed, the camp alarm went up. A conch horn blew. All the satyrs started screaming, "Don't kill me!" Half the camp ran outside in a mixture of pyjamas and armour. The dragon set down right in the middle o the green, and Leo yelled, "It's cool! Don't shoot!"

Hesitantly, the archers lowered their bows. The warriors backed away, keeping their spears and swords ready. They made a loose wide ring around the metal monster. Other demigods hid behind their cabin doors or peeped out of the windows. Nobody seemed anxious to get close.

Piper couldn't blame them. The dragon was huge. It glistened in the morning sun like a living penny sculpture - different shades of copper and bronze - a sixty-foot-long serpent with steel talons and drill-bit teeth and glowing ruby eyes. It had bat-shaped wings twice its length that unfurled like metallic sails, making a sound like coins cascading out of a slot machine every time they flapped.

"It's beautiful," Piper muttered. The other demigods stared at her like she was insane.

The dragon reared its head and shot a column of fire into the sky. Campers scrambled away and hefted their weapons, but Azalea and Leo slid calmly off the dragon's back. Leo held up his hand like he was surrendering, except he still had that crazy grin on his face.

"People of Earth, I come in peace!" He shouted. Azalea cringed and shuffled over to one of the Aphrodite campers, then started talking with her. Leo looked like he'd been rolling around in the campfire. His army coat and his face were smeared with soot. His hands were grease-stained, and he wore a new tool belt around his waist. His eyes were bloodshot. His curly hair was so oily it stuck up in porcupine quills, and he smelled strangely of Tabasco sauce. But he looked absolutely delighted. "Festus is just saying hello!"

"That thin is dangerous!" an Ares girl shouted, brandishing her spear. "Kill it now!"

"Stand down!" someone ordered.

To Piper's surprise, it was Jason. He pushed through the crowd, flanked by Annabeth and that girl from the Hephaestus cabin, Nyssa.

Jason gazed up at the dragon an shook his head in amazement. "Leo, Azalea, what have you done?"

"Found a ride!" Leo beamed. "You said I could go on the quest if I got you a ride. Well, I got you a class-A metallic flying bad boy! Festus can take us anywhere!"

"It - has wings," Nyssa stammered. Her jaw looked like it might drop off her face.

"Yeah!" Leo said. "I found them and reattached them."

"But it never had wings. Where did you find them

Azalea caught her breath and clenched her jaw, Leo hesitated, and Piper could tell he was hiding something.

"In... the woods," he said. "Repaired his circuits, too, mostly, so no more problems with him going haywire."

"Mostly?" Nysaa asked.

The dragon's head twitched. It tilted to one side and a stream of black liquid - maybe oil, hopefully just oil - poured out of its ear, all over Leo.

"Just a few kinks to work out." Leo said.

"But how did you survive..." Nyssa was still staring at the creature in awe. "I mean, the fire breath..."

"I'm quick," Leo said, an out of the corner of her eye, Piper saw Azalea raise her eyebrows, but quickly resumed her non-suspicious demeanour. Leo continued. "And lucky. Now, am I on this quest or what?"

"Azalea, how did you survive?" Nyssa asked, not completely satisfied with Leo's answer.

"Turns out I'm kind of heat resistant, and I have a shield of water about me," Azalea replied smoothly. "Leo was fast. I was actually rather surprised."

Nyssa nodded. Piper didn't know why, but Azalea seemed to have replied a little too calmly for her answer to be truth. Piper couldn't be sure since she didn't know Azalea very well, but there was a feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Jason scratched his head. "You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, 'Festus' means 'happy'? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?"

The dragon twitched and shuddered and flapped his wings.

"That's a yes, bro!" Leo said. "Now, um, I'd really suggest we get going, guys. I already picked up some supplies in the - um, in the woods. And all these people with weapons are making Festus nervous."

Piper now knew that Azalea was a much smoother lier than Leo.

Jason frowned. "But we haven't planned anything yet. We can't just -"

"Go," Annabeth said. She was the only one other than Azalea who didn't look nervous at all. Her expression was sad and wistful, like this reminded her of better times. "Jason, you've only got three days until the solstice now, and you should never keep a nervous dragon waiting. This is certainly a good omen. Go!"

Jason nodded. Then he smiled at Piper. "You ready, partner."

Piper looked at the bronze dragon Azalea and Leo were already headed to, the dragons wings shining against the sky, an those talons that could've shredded her to pieces.

"You bet." she said.

Flying on the dragon was the most amazing experience ever, Piper thought.

Up high, the air was freezing cold, but the dragon's metal hide generated so much heat it was like they were flying in a protective bubble. Talk about seat warmers! And the grooves in the dragon's back were designed like high-tech saddles, so they weren't uncomfortable at all. Leo showed them how to hook their feet in the chinks of the armour, like stirrups, and use the leather safety harnesses cleverly concealed under the exterior plating. The sat single file: Leo in front, then Azalea, the Piper, then Jason, and Piper was very aware of Jason right behind her. She wished he would hold onto her, maybe wrap his arms around her waist, but, sadly, he didn't.

Leo used the reins to steer the dragon into the sky like he'd been doing it all his life. The metal wings worked perfectly, and soon the coast of Long Island was just a hazy line behind them. They shot over Connecticut and climbed into the grey winter clouds.

Leo grinned back at them. "Cool, right?"

"What if we get spotted?" Piper asked.

"What if Zeus decides to zap me?" Azalea asked, clearly distressed.

"The Mist," Jason said. "It keeps mortals from seeing magic things. If they spot us, they'll probably mistake us for a small plane or something."

Piper glanced over her shoulder. "You sure about that?"

"No." He admitted.

"Oh yeah. Just forget about the fact that Zeus might decide to kill me at any moment, destroying me before the quest has ever begun." Azalea said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Piper saw Jason was clutching a photo in his hand - a picture of a girl with dark hair.

She gave Jason a quizzical look, but he blushed and put the photo in his pocket. "We're making good time. Probably get there by tonight."

"Yep. Just forget about Zeus and his possible murder of me." Azalea said dryly.

Piper wondered who the girl in the picture was, but she didn't want to ask and, if Jason didn't volunteer the information, that wasn't a good sign. Had he remembered something about his life before? Was that a photo of his real girlfriend?

Stop it, she thought. You'll just torture yourself.

She asked a safer question. "Where are we heading?"

"To find the god of the North Wind," Jason said. "And chase some storm spirits."

* * *

**Okay, you lot. I am making a video with themes for each of the Prophecy of Eight characters that will be posted on m YouTube channel as soon as possible. Only one problem. I am not the greater artist, so I have only drawn one picture of Azalea, and even though I tried, my drawings were pathetic.**

**So,**

**PLEASE DRAW ME AZALEA BLUE FANART!**


	11. Chapter 11: Leo

Leo was totally buzzing.

The expression on everyone's face when he flew the dragon into camp? Priceless! He thought his cabinmates were going to bust a lug nut.

Festus had been awesome, too. He hadn't blowtorches a single cabin or eaten any satyrs, even if he did dribble a little oil from his ear. Okay, a lot of oil. Leo could work on that later.

Plus, Azalea had caught onto his lies super quick, and played along. She was a smooth lier, but Leo still had to work on his skills, just a little. But he thought everyone had believed him.

So maybe Leo didn't seize the chance to tell everybody about Bunker 9 or the flying boat design. He needed some time to think about all that. He could tell them when he came back.

If I come back, part of him thought.

Nah, he'd come back. He's scored a sweet magic tool belt from the bunker, plus a lot of cool supplies now safely stowed in his backpack. Besides, he had a fire-breathing, only slightly leaky dragon on his side. What could go wrong?

Well, the control disc could bust, the bad part of him suggested. Festus could eat you.

Okay, so the dragon wasn't quite as fixed as Leo might've let on. He'd worked all night attaching those wings, but he hadn't found an extra dragon brain anywhere in the bunker. Hey, they were under a time limit, and Azalea hadn't helped! Three days until the solstice. They had to get going. Besides, Leo had cleaned the disk pretty well. Most of the circuits were still good. It would just have to hold together.

His bad side started to think, Yeah, but what if -

"Shut up, me," Leo said aloud.

"What?" Piper asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Long night. I think I'm hallucinating. It's cool."

Sitting in front, Leo couldn't see their faces, but he assumed from their silence that his friends were not pleased to have a sleepless, hallucinating dragon driver... Could he count Azalea as his friend yet? Yeah, he decided he could.

"Just joking." Leo decided it might be good to change the subject. "So what's the plan, bro? You said something about catching wind, or breaking wind, or something?"

As they flew over New England, Jason laid out the game plan: first, find some guy named Boreas and grill him for information -

"His name is Boreas?" Leo had to ask. "What is he, the God of Boring?"

"And now I'm kinda hungry." Azalea groaned.

Second, Jason continued, they had to find those venti that had attacked them at the Grand Canyon -

"Can we just call them storm spirits?" Leo asked. "Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks."

"I'm not a big fan of coffee," Azalea said. "Just putting that out there."

"So British." Leo muttered.

And third, Jason finished, they had to find out who the storm spirits worked for, so they could find Hera and free her.

"So you want to look for Dylan, the nasty storm dude, on purpose," Leo said." The guy who threw me off the skywalk and sucked Coach Hedge into the clouds."

"You're mental," Azalea said, then a drop of fear was added to her voice. "Please don't hurt me, Zeus."

"That's about it," Jason said. "Well... The may be a wolf involved, too. But I think she's friendly. She probably won't eat us, unless we show weakness."

Jason told them about his dream - the nasty mother wolf and a burnt-out house with stone spires growing out of the swimming pool.

"Uh-huh," Leo said. "But you don't know where this place is."

"Nope," Jason admitted.

"There are also giants," Piper added, "The prophecy said the giant's revenge."

"Hold on," Leo said. "Giants - like more than one? Why can't it be one giant who wants revenge?"

"I doubt it," Azalea said. "In some of the old Greek stories, there was something about an army of giants. Plural."

"Great," Leo muttered. "Of course, with our luck, it's an army. So do any of you know anything else about these giants? Piper, didn't you do a bunch of myth research for that movie with your dad?"

"Your dad's an actor?" Jason and Azalea asked.

Leo laughed. "I keep forgetting about Azalea not knowing us and Jason's amnesia. Heh. Forgetting about amnesia. That's funny. But yeah, her dad's Tristan McLean."

"Uh - Sorry, what was he in?" Jason asked.

"That's awesome!" Azalea said happily. "And really bad pun, Leo."

"It doesn't matter," Piper said quickly. "The giants - well, there were lots of giants in Greek mythology. But if I'm thinking of the right ones they were bad news."

"These giants were, well, giant, and almost impossible to kill. They could throw mountains and all that jess. They were relate to the Titans, I think. They rose from the earth after Kronos lost the war - the first Titan war, thousands of years ago - and they tried to destroy Olympus. If we're talking about the same giants..."

"Chiron said it was happening again," Jason remembered. "The last chapter. That's what he meant. No wonder he didn't want us to know all the details."

"Basically, History is repeating itself... Again." Azalea mumbled.

Leo whistled. "So... giants who can throw mountains. Friendly wolves that will eat us if we show weakness. Evil espresso drinks. Gotcha. Maybe this isn't the time to bring up my phycho babysitter."

"Is that another joke?" Piper asked.

Leo told them about Tïa Callida, who was really Hera, and how she appeared to him at camp. He didn't tell them about his fore abilities. That was still a touchy subject, especially after Nyssa had told him fire demigods tended to destroy cities and stuff. Besides, then Leo would have to get into how he's caused his mom's death, and... No. He wasn't ready to go there. He did manage to talk about the night she died, not mentioning the fire, just saying the machine shop collapsed. It was easier without having to look at his friends just keeping his eyes straight ahead as they flew. When he talked about the death, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and, considering she was behind him, and knew the real story, he guessed it was Azalea.

And he told them about the strange woman in earthen robes who seemed to be asleep, and seemed to know the future.

Leo estimated the whole state of Massachusetts passed below them before his friend's spoke up. He still felt Azalea's hand on his shoulder, but now she removed it.

"That's... disturbing." Piper said.

"'Bout sums it up," Leo agreed. "Thing is, everybody says don't trust Hera. She hates demigods. And the prophecy said we'd cause death if we unleash her rage. So I'm wondering..."

"Why are we doing this?" Azalea finishes.

"She chose us," Jason said. "All four of us. We're the first of the eight who have to gather for the Great Prophecy. This quest is the beginning of something much bigger."

That didn't make Leo feel any better, but he couldn't argue with Jason's point. It did feel like this was the start of something huge. He just wished that if there were four more demigods destined to help them they'd show up quick. Leo didn't want to hog all the terrifying life-threatning adventures.

"Besides," Jason continued, "helping Hera is the only was I can get my memory back. And that dark spire in my dream seemed to be feeding on Hera's energy. If that thing unleashes a king of the giants by destroying Hera -"

"Not a good trade-off," Piper agreed. "At least Hera is on our side - mostly. Losing her would throw the gods into chaos. She's the main one who keeps peace in the family. And a war with the giants could be even more destructive than the Titan War."

Jason nodded. "Chiron also talked about worse forces stirring on the solstice, with it being a good time for dark magic and all - something that could awaken if Hera were sacrificed on that day. And this mistress who's controlling the storm spirits, the one who wants to kill all the demigods -"

"Might be that weird sleeping lady," Leo finished. "Dirt Woman fully awake? Not something I want to see."

"But who is she?" Jason asked. "And what does she have to do with giants?"

Good questions, but none of them had answers. They flew in silence while Leo wondered if he'd done the right thing, sharing so much. He's never told anyone about that night at the warehouse. He didn't actually tell Azalea. Even if he hadn't given them the whole story, it still felt strange, like he's opened up his chest and taken out all the gears that made him tick. His body was shaking, and not from the cold. He hoped Azalea, sitting behind him, could't tell.

The forge and the dove shall break the cage. Wasn't that the prophecy line? That meant Piper and he would have to figure out how to break into that magic rock prison, assuming they could find it. Then they'd unleash Hera's rage, causing a lot of action; she like knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, let's definitely unleash her rage. Great idea.

Festus kept flying. The wind got cooler, and below them snowy forests seemed to go on forever. Leo didn't know exactly where Quebec was. He's told Festus to take them to the palace of Boreas, and Festus kept going North. Hopefully, the dragon knew the way, and they wouldn't end up at the North Pole.

"Why don't you get some sleep?" Azalea said in his ear. "You were up all night."

Leo wanted to protest, but the word sleep sounded really good. "You won't let me fall off?"

Piper called from a little further back. "Trust us, Valdez. Beautiful people never lie."

"Right." He muttered. He leaned forward against the warn bronze of the dragon's neck and closed his eyes.


End file.
